MAY 17, 2020
ORDINARY FORM (ENGLISH) MASS
The modern polygraph, sometimes called a “lie detector” is a device that measures autonomic reactions on a person’s body
People subjected to a polygraph, are strapped up to all sorts of devices that measure skin resistance, breathing rate, heart rate, and blood pressure. The person is then asked three types of questions:
irrelevant questions - to establish a baseline,
comparison questions - which are indirectly related to the subject at hand,
and relevant questions - which are directly related to whatever is being investigated.
The idea, supposedly, is that the subconscious mind is tuned into to the truth, and causes the body to react to lies - even lies the person may consciously and intentionally be trying to hide something. In this, the subconscious shows an aversion to lies, and causes the body to react in various ways.
Today’s Gospel comes once again from Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse” at the Last Supper from John’s Gospel.
In one sense, it foreshadows the next three weeks in the Church’s liturgical calendar. That is, the next three Sundays.
What is coming up next week is the Ascension of Our Lord to the right hand of God the Father.
Followed the next week by Pentecost Sunday - the descent of the Holy Spirit on Our Lady and the Apostles in the Upper Room.
And the next Sunday is Trinity Sunday.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about leaving ... about the Holy Spirit ... and about His relationship to the disciples ... as well as what their relationship – and our relationship– to the three Persons of the Godhead should be.
A key line here is when Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept.”
Which begs the question: Can we accept this?
The world cannot accept the deep abiding love that Jesus calls all His disciples to live. The world instead wants a shallow fickle lukewarm love that expresses nothing. No commitment. No depth. No intensity.
The Holy Spirit – what Jesus calls, the Spirit of Truth – empowers us to go forth and tell the good news ... evangelize about the Love we know through, with, and in Christ Jesus ... the Love of God the Father ... poured out on us in the Holy Spirit. These three relationships empower us to be true disciples and fully actualized Christians.
As we continue in this sacred liturgy, offering to the Father the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit ... let us pray for the openness ... the docility ... to accept the Spirit of truth - the Holy Spirit - and to receive in a new way today ... the deep abiding Love of God ... as shown forth in the Paschal Mystery – the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
