WeThree months ago, my friends, 90 days ago we were signed with blessed ashes as we began our Lenten journey.

Since then, we traveled the road of Lent for 6 weeks.

We commemorated Our Lord’s suffering, and death during Holy Week, His rising above it all on Easter Sunday, and the week before last, His Ascension and return to His heavenly Father, now leaving us, His followers, to continue the work He began, which is to make God’s ways our ways.

Feeling very daunted by this challenge, the Apostles hid out in the upper room where they had the Last Supper.

They waited for the help Jesus promised He would send, and that, of course, is the Holy Spirit, so beautifully portrayed there over the main doors of our Church. Please glance back and take a look at it.

Now having been invigorated to cast all fears aside, the Apostles moved out into the world, and time and again, whenever and wherever they would preach, thousands and thousands would step forward and be baptized.

And after their baptisms, what did the people do? But establish and build churches whereat and wherein they could keep living out making God’s ways their ways.

And why did they do this?  Well, it has a lot to do with hope, the kind of hope which Pope Benedict talked to us Americans about several weeks ago.

Those early Christians saw and heard in the Apostles’ preaching opportunities for a better life–style, which included peace, forgiveness, reconciliation, justice, tolerance, wisdom and understanding, fortitude and perseverance.

This was the hope for their future days, under the Roman Empire, that energized them the way it did.

Now for us, centuries later, we pray the words of today’s responsorial psalm: “Lord, send out your spirit, and renew the face of the earth,” and we can’t help but wonder, as we listen to the news or read the newspaper, whether much of any renewal has taken place on the face of our earth, really!

After all, wars still continue. People live in fear and poverty. Leaders in all segments of society get caught in cycles of the abuse of power. Children in some parts of the world die of hunger each day.

And the list goes on.

So as we ask: “Where is the renewal?”

We have to be quick to realize that each time we reach out to help someone in need, we are renewing the face of the earth.

Each time a family tries to live the Gospel way of life, starting at home, we are renewing the face of the earth.

And a lot of that experience has to do with the spiritual gifts of peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation:

Of peace - that wonderful feeling of contentment with one’s surroundings, at home especially, and the physical and emotional embraces of those you care for and who care for you;

Of forgiveness - the even more genuine and beautiful expression of love then the words “I love you” are the words “I forgive you.”

And of reconciliation - that peaceful feeling of where a bridge to another was painfully broken, now it is rebuilt and now it is safe for those who travel on it to be reconnected again and move forward with the tomorrows of their lives.

And each time we perform any of the other corporal or spiritual works of mercy we are renewing the face of the earth.

These are the same motivations that moved the early Christians to baptism and to establish their local churches.

Please God, they are the same motivations for us to keep doing the same for ourselves and all those around us.

Happy Birthday, Holy Mother Church.

       Thank you.