Homily for Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter 14 May 2020, Jn 15:9-17
What if I gave you a surprise quiz and the question was, “Can you list down for me, from rote memory, the names of the twelve apostles of Jesus?” I wonder how many of you, followers of this Online Mass, will get 12 out of 12? Well, that was exactly the question for a surprise quiz, which our religion teacher gave us when I was in first year high school in the minor seminary. I remember I listed them down excitedly because I knew them by heart; or so I thought. To my great disappointment, I got only 11 correct answers out of 12. So, I complained, insisting that I got all twelve names right. Our teacher put on his reading glasses and reviewed my answer sheet. And then he looked up at me and said, “And may I know where in the Bible it is written that St. Paul was one of the twelve apostles, Mr. Pablo Virgilio David?”
I wasn’t a Bible reader yet at that time but I defended my answer anyway and said, “In our Church in Betis, Guagua, Pampanga, Father.” He laughed, of course, and he gave me back my paper and said, “If you had written Matthias, instead of Judas Iscariot, I would probably have given you an extra point for that. But St. Paul? Good heavens!”
Believe it or not, if you get to visit the most famous heritage Church in Pampanga, the Santiago Apostol Parish in my hometown Betis, you will find out that I was correct. On the walls on either side of the windows of our four-century old parish Church, you will find the twelve apostles painted and properly identified. The first one on the right side is St. Peter; and the first one on the left is, yes, St. Paul. I memorized them because I visited that Church twice a day during school days. Up until this day I have no explanation why the Augustinian Missionaries who brought the faith to Pampanga listed St. Paul among the twelve apostles.
Today’s feast day explains to us how the community of the early Christians elected a replacement for Judas Iscariot. Yes, St. Matthias. St. Luke tells us the participants in the election were 120. The criteria were clear “Choose someone from among those who were with us, beginning with John’s baptism until the day when Jesus was taken away from us (meaning, the ascension).“ They proposed two nominees: A certain Joseph and Matthias. And then they prayed. And then they drew lots. And the lot fell on Matthias.
As far as they were concerned, what really mattered was not whom they wanted but whom the Holy Spirit wanted them to choose. Listen to their prayer, “You know, O Lord, what is in the hearts of all. Show us, therefore, which of the two YOU HAVE CHOSEN…”. That is why the whole process had to be submitted first to prayer and discernment. We do the choosing but we have to ask ourselves first “Whom is the Holy Spirit asking us to choose, within the circumstances? (It is what the Cardinals themselves do inside the Sistine Chapel when they elect a Pope. ). No politics, no campaigning, no electioneering. In fact, they have a saying that goes, “He who enters the Conclave a Pope leaves as a Cardinal.” (Meaning, if you enter the Conclave with an ambition to become Pope you will never get elected.). It is usually outsiders like the media people who do all the speculating, like what they are doing now with our beloved Cardinal Tagle. It is most unbecoming when such speculations are done within Church circles, or when people in the Church go to the extent of pulling strings here and there to get their prospective candidates elected. That’s how Satan works.
When Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected Pope, nobody ever thought that this old man was still capable of rocking the boat and initiating a radical move to reform the Church at the Second Vatican Council. It is the Holy Spirit who does the choosing. That is the point in prayer and discernment. Without prayer and discernment, you have nothing but a typical political marathon. But then you might ask, how do we know if the Holy Spirit succeeded in the election process? The answer is in today’s Gospel, namely—if it was LOVE, the love of Christ, that motivated the choice. St. John tells us people who remain in Christ will be motivated by Christ’s commandment of love.
Actually, it is still we who do the electing, but in a manner guided by the Holy Spirit, so that in following his promptings we choose as Christ would choose—if we truly are members of the Body of Christ. No doubt, there will be discordant voices sometimes, some disagreements, conflicts, alternative opinions and ideas. That’s ok. We just have to be ready at all times to submit them to prayer and discernment, to set the ego aside. If we want Christ to lead us, we are never to allow ourselves to be motivated by politics, by power-play, or influence peddling.
One of the clearest signs that a person is not the one chosen by the Holy Spirit is the over-eagerness or overzealousness of that person to get the position AT ALL COST. Ambition, power-seeking, quest for supremacy and the desire to “make a name for oneself”—these are the among the best indicators that a candidate is not the Holy Spirit’s choice. These things are devil’s typical entry points into the hearts and minds even of very good people. And please make no mistake about this; we’re not saying people are bad just because they are ambitious. All we’re saying is that they are in such a disposition that they can be easily manipulated by the evil one. It is through people like these that the Church gets corrupted every now and then.
Our Gospel today can actually help us formulate some useful questions for assessing the qualifications of candidates for positions of Church leadership. Jesus says, “Love…as I have loved you.” Does the candidate know how to love as Jesus does? “No greater love one has than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Are the candidates ready to lay down their lives for the Church? Do they have the humility of a servant, or even better, the faithfulness of a friend? Jesus also said, “It was not you who chose me; it was I who chose you.” Is this or that person the kind whom Jesus would choose, or is he rather the kind who chooses himself because he thinks too highly of himself? And even when the choice has been made already, the community has to be consistently prayerful and discerning to make sure its leaders are functioning as the Spirit so desires? How? By their fruits you will know them. Are the fruits that he bears, fruits of the Holy Spirit? (Check out the fruits of the Spirit as laid out in Galatians 5:22.) If they are, through the Holy Spirit, he will keep the community together in the love of Christ.
