In today’s Gospel, we hear the foundational commandment of Christianity: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19). Ever since, believers have been trying to wrap their brains around this essential mystery of faith: the Holy Trinity. Many have offered images: St. Augustine proposed the idea of Giver, Receiver, and Gift. Rublev inscribed the famous icon of three angels seated at a table in conversation. St. Patrick famously offered the shamrock as the image of three-in-one, one-in-three.

Happy Birthday! It may not be your personal birthday, but today, the Feast of Pentecost, is often considered the birthday of our Church.

Why? Because Pentecost signifies the end of Jesus’ earthly work among us, and the beginning, the birth, of the disciples’ mission and of our mission – to carry on His ministry, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to all the world. Hence, today can be considered the birthday of our Church.

To quote biblical scholar, Dianne Bergant: “Today we stand awestruck watching Jesus ascend into the clouds of heaven, there to be enthroned at the right hand of God. Today is a day to be overwhelmed by the reality of the divinity of the one we have known in his humanity…we live between the time of his departure and the time of his return.”

Normally during the year our Sunday readings have a central theme running through the first (Old Testament) and third (Gospel) readings. That is, except the Easter Season.

Throughout the Sundays of Easter joy we are treated to a history lesson in our first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles. This is the story of how, after Jesus’s ascension, our first communities of faith began. In many ways it is hard to imagine that the same people who turned their backs on Jesus in his hour of greatest need are the same folks now fearlessly going out into the streets to preach, getting arrested and persecuted for His name.

The Greek verb ‘Menein’ appears 8 times in the first 8 verses of today’s Gospel passage (John 15:1-8). Why?

‘Menein’ means to remain, to stay, to abide, to live, to dwell, to be an integral part of... To continue the life of Jesus in our hearts, we must ‘remain’ in him. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. To bear fruit, we must remain, abide, stay, live, dwell, be an integral part of Jesus.