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The Time After Pentecost
After having received so many graces, should we not be entirely possessed by Christ?
Should we not by this time consider all that is precious in the eyes of worldly men but as dung?
Are we to be numbered among those who walk as “enemies of the cross of Christ; . . . who mind
earthly things? But our conversation is in heaven.”
Prayer
We beseech Thee, almighty God, that Thou wilt not permit to be overcome by human dangers
those whom Thou grantest to rejoice in the participation in the divine mysteries. Through
Christ our Lord. Amen. (Postcommunion.)
Thursday
This joyful message the Church brings us today: “I will bring back your captivity from all
places” (Introit). The Lord has ascended into heaven to prepare a place for us. “If I shall go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am, you also
may be” ( Jn 14:3).
“He shall come again,” the Church assures us in the Credo. The Lord Himself has to return.
“And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. . . . All tribes . . . shall see the Son
of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. And He shall send His
angels with a trumpet and a great voice; and they shall gather together His elect from the four
winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them” (Mt 24:30 ff.).
“But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, because your
redemption is at hand” (Lk 21:28). He will come to judge the wicked and “to be glorified in
His saints [the baptized] and to be made wonderful in all them who have believed” (2 Thes
1:10). “All that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that have done
good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto
the resurrection of judgment” ( Jn 5:28 f.). “And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be
made alive. But every one in his own order: the first fruits, Christ; then they that are of Christ,
who have believed in His coming. Afterwards the end, when He shall have delivered up the
kingdom to God and the Father, when He shall have brought to nought all principality and
power and virtue. For He must reign until He hath put all His enemies under His feet. And
the enemy, death, shall be destroyed last” (1 Cor 15:22–26). Once He has subjected all things
to Himself, He will take us by the hand and lead us to the Father, saying, “Come, ye blessed of
My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt
25:34). Then the promise will be fulfilled, “I shall come again and will take you to Myself.” We
trust in this promise of the Lord, and in His will and His ability to fulfill it. “Lift up your heads,
because your redemption is at hand.”
“That where I am, you also may be” ( Jn 14:3). “Father, I will that where I am, they also
whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me” ( Jn 17:24), not only as My brethren, but as members
of My mystical body. Therefore if I am in glory, they also shall be there with Me as My
members. “That they may see My glory, which Thou hast given Me” ( Jn 17:24). Yes, they shall
receive this glory themselves; for I “will reform the body, . . . made like to the body of [My]
glory” (Epistle). Father, “I in them, and Thou in Me” ( Jn 17:23). Therefore the love which Thou
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