Wednesday of the 4th Week of Easter
Acts 12:24-13:5a; John 12:44-50
The word St. Luke uses for “worshiping” or “ministering” is the word we know as liturgy. In the liturgy, we don’t just worship God; we are drawn into what God is doing. And what God is doing is always this: He speaks, He calls, and He sends.
We saw that in the reading from Acts, when the Holy Spirit set Barnabas and Saul apart, and sent them.
So, since the earliest times, our liturgies have given birth to mission.
But mission for whom – certain people only? It might seem that way, especially when we think of Sacraments such as Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders. But the fact is that every time we gather, as we do now for the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit says again, “Set apart for me those I have called.”
Who’s that? All of us.
And why does God send us? Because of what Jesus says in the Gospel: ‘Whoever sees me sees the one who sent me.’ Jesus Himself is sent, and everything Jesus does reveals the Father. So when we are sent, it is for the same reason: to make the Father visible in the world.
St. Catherine of Siena lived exactly this way. Long before she was a woman of action, Catherine was a woman of the liturgy. She grew in her love for Christ from baptism through the Eucharist. So thoroughly did she consecrate herself with Christ to the Father in the Holy Eucharist that for the last several years of her life, her only food was the Eucharist. She drew her very life from the Blessed Sacrament, discovering in it a source of endless spiritual energy that united her to Christ in charity.
In other words, Catherine’s extraordinary mission — reforming the Church, calling popes to return the papacy to Rome — did not come from her. It came from liturgy. It came from the altar.
The fearlessness it took for her – a laywoman with no formal education – to write to popes and kings didn’t come from human confidence, but from the same Spirit who said to the Church at Antioch: “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul.” Catherine heard the Spirit, and like Barnabas and Saul, poured out her life in obedience.
I remember once asking my spiritual director about this. Hearing that people like St. Catherine lived only on the Eucharist made me wonder, “Is that to be a model for me? Should I hope, someday, to live on nothing but the Eucharist?” Father replied, “God gives us such saints, not that we imitate their level of piety or virtue, but that we push ourselves a little further in that direction. God is probably not asking you to live only on the Eucharist, but He may well be asking you to increase your desire to receive Him and be transformed by His grace.”
I think that’s a good answer. It reminds us that the Holy Spirit is speaking to us personally – right here, right now. Each of us is set apart and sent. From this altar. Today. It is also a reminder to pray during the liturgy, especially Holy Mass, for the strength to answer the Spirit’s call. It’s easy and tempting to allow fear to take hold, which is why St. Catherine once said, “Don’t look at your weaknesses. Realize instead that in Christ crucified you can do everything.”
St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us.
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Mark 10:45 