Sunday Reflection by Mike – 18 May 2025

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Also Read: Mass Readings for 18 May 2025 Sunday Reflection by Maryanne – 18 May 2025

“They appointed elders for them”

In the first reading we find the basis for one of the Church’s most important, practical teachings and arguments for its existence: apostolic succession. We have Paul and Barnabbas, themselves not one of the original Twelve Apostles, who are not only doing the work of the Apostles but also extending their presence. As many non-Catholic Christians fail to recognize, this is not just the Holy Spirit selecting Paul and Barnabbas, then empowering them, to preach the Gospel or know a lot about the Bible, but the Holy Spirit empowers them to be the presence of the Twelve, and ultimately the presence of Jesus, to the world. This extends then to those Paul and Barnabbas appoint just like it was extended to them when the Apostles appointed them. 

“the glory of your kingdom” … “God’s dwelling is with the human race”

Though the Psalm was not talking directly about this idea, it applies to the other verses when we consider that God’s presence in humanity, first by Jesus taking on human nature and then by the Holy Spirit literally inspiring the Church, was always the Glory of God’s Kingdom. In the Old Testament, when this Psalm was written, there was a cloud that held God’s presence that descended onto the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. Now, God’s presence descended upon the Apostles as Pentecost and is carried by them to the rest of the world. Instead of staying in one place, the Jewish Temple, now it is covering the whole world.

“I will be with you only a little while longer”

It is sometimes very confusing to readers when they see Jesus talk like this. It is a reasonable question to ask why he did not, and does not, just stay and be with us like he was then. This way of thinking does not recognize the more profound presence that Jesus has in the world through the Eucharist and through the Church. Jesus’s Ascension into heaven completed the ultimate act of worship that he made with the offering of his body. God, being pleased with this offering, sent Himself down to earth as tongues of fire, which is carried in the souls of Christians from their baptism onward.