5th Sunday of Easter
Confirmation
Cathedral of Mary our Queen
April 28, 2024
Connectivity
If you’d been around as long as I have, you’d remember what communications used to be like. There was the phone – land lines and pay phones. People actually read newspapers. People sent letters and telegrams. There were 3 or 4 TV stations. There were typewriters. No cell phones. No internet. No social media. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?
Today, we’re connected as never before. Everyone has a cell phone. If we lose our phones we panic. There’s Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, & Tic Toc (heaven help us), and for older folks like me there’s X and Facebook.
But all these ways of being connected don’t always bring us together. It seems like the more we communicate, the more divided and isolated we become. We’re a polarized society. Common ground is hard to find. We’re also a lonely society – there is an epidemic of loneliness. It’s as though we no longer belong to one another or belong to something bigger than ourselves.
Deep down, we want something better. As Pope St. John Paul II, said, “We are made for love and for communion with God and others.” Deep down we know that we need to love and to be loved. Without love, life makes no sense.
Vine and Branches
In today’s Gospel, Jesus shows us a better way to be connected. . . connected not just culturally, morally, legally, or electronically – but connected in love. He said very simply, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” Christ calls us, invites us to be connected to him and to his Person as closely as branches are connected to the vine. He’s inviting us to find in himself the love and the joy we’re looking for. He’s inviting us to a relationship of love from which we draw strength, hope, and purpose in our lives. Christ is inviting you to be connected to him and to be connected to everyone else who loves and follows him.
The Spirit Connects Us to Christ
That is why you are being confirmed. In Confirmation the Holy Spirit “seals the deal” – the Spirit strengthens and deepens your relationship with Christ, so that Jesus is not someone stuck in the past but Someone real, so that Jesus is not a stern moral teacher but a compassionate Friend who forgives sins and guides you to what is true, good, beautiful – and real.
And in Confirmation, you become fully members of the Church, meaning that you not only belong to Christ but you also belong to the people he has redeemed by his Blood.
So think of it this way. Healthy branches that bear fruit have to have a strong connection to the vine. The Holy Spirit, whose fullness you receive in Confirmation, connects you— connects you to Christ, especially in the Mass, the Eucharist, which is the most important source of Christ’s strength and love in our lives. The Spirit connects you to your Church and connects you to your family and to your friends in a beautiful, life-giving way. The Spirit connects you to the poor and needy who are really Jesus in one of his ‘distressing disguises’ as Mother Teresa said.
This is the gift that is being given to you today. But to accept this gift, you have to want it and you have to appreciate it. What good is a cell phone if you don’t turn it on or if you lose it? What good will your connection to Christ in the Holy Spirit be if you turn off your faith and even lose it? I pray that you will open your hearts to the Holy Spirit, that you will allow the Spirit to strengthen your connection to Christ and to the Church, and that you experience the joy of belonging to the Lord, experiencing his love, as also the joy of belonging to one another in the Church and in your families, and in good friendships that break down the isolation and division all around us.
May God bless you and keep you always in his love.