Sixth Sunday of Easter C.  May 13, 2007.  Our Lady of Grace 7:30, 11:30, 6PM.  Acts 15: 1-2, 22-29.  Revelations 21:10-14, 22-23.  John 14:23-29.

The Book of Genesis says:  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless and empty void, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”  In the beginning everything was chaos, a confused shapeless mass from which the universe developed into the cosmos we know as our universe.  When the Spirit of God hovered over the formless void of the universe things began to take shape.  How this all happened is a vast mystery hidden in millions and millions of years of growth and change.   What we do know is that the Spirit of God is the great authority that changed a shapeless void into the planet and the universe we know and love.  Authority, especially the authority of God, is essential to the unfolding of the universe and to the healthy development of our lives.  Without the authority hidden in the laws of nature our universe would return to chaos.  Without authority, our society would descend into endless violence and confusion.  A healthy world without authority is impossible, no matter how much we cherish freedom.

I enjoy reading American History.  The more I read the more than I am convinced that the founders of our country did a miraculous thing in balancing the freedom of every human being with the authority necessary to keep society from descending into chaos.  Our ancestors knew that they did not want a king with near absolute authority which was their heritage as citizens of Great Britain.  Parliament had already begun to limit the power of the king.  Our ancestors wanted to eliminate the king completely so that the people would be the supreme authority in our land.  On the other hand they recognized that the majority did not always make wise decisions.  What we ended up with in the second and present United States Constitution is a very careful balancing of authority that allows everyone to be free at the same time that the need for true and effective authority is recognized.   So it is that we have a strong president and executive branch of government with definite authority.  At the same time we have a strong legislative branch of government where the Senate balances the House of Representatives and both have real authority in working with the President.  If that weren’t enough, we have a strong Supreme Court with its own authority in balancing both the executive and legislative branches of government.   All of this seems very complicated, but no better system of government that protects both freedom and authority has ever been devised. We are very blessed in this land. Our history shows that freedom and authority can and must work well together.

In our Catholic Church there is real authority.  One of the reasons that the Catholic Church has existed for 2000 years and has both maintained the essentials of Christian Faith at the same time that it has grown and adjusted through and with all the societies of which it has been a part is that the Church has real authority.  There is no doubt that at times authority has not served us well.  There have been unholy popes, bishops and priests.  I do not think that there is any doubt that the way authority is exercised needs to be re-evaluated in every age.  At the same time, a living, breathing and teaching authority in the Church is a gift that has been given to us by Christ.  While the Bible is a great authority, it doesn’t have a table of contents.  Only a living, teaching Church can tell us which books belong to the Bible and help us to interpret what the Bible means.  As Catholics we would never say that the Bible is our sole authority because when the Bible is read by millions of people without a living authority, everyone’s opinion is equal and chaos may well be the result.

The living authority of the Church in interpreting the Bible and guiding the lives of Christians goes back to the every earliest days of the Christian community.  When a dispute arose among the earliest followers of Jesus about whether the God-given commandments of the Old Testament about circumcision and unclean foods needed to be observed by Gentile converts to Christianity, leaders of the infant Church took a clear stand even though they had almost nothing from the teaching of Jesus to fall back on.  The apostles and elders of the Christian Church in Jerusalem wrote to the new Gentile converts saying, “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit, and of us too, not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage.  If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right.”   The earliest leaders of the Church felt that they had the God-given authority to change what the Old Testament clearly demanded.   They had no doubt about their authority and they were sure that their Holy Spirit driven authority allowed them to interpret and apply the Scriptures to the life of the Church.

On this Mothers’ Day we remember that parents have real authority with their children.  Without parental authority the world of a child descends into chaos.  Children not only need authority, I believe that they also want the authority of their parents to help them structure there lives, no matter how much they fight against it.  Parents who are afraid to exercise sensitive, compassionate and real authority with their children are not helping their children prepare for the discipline that a good life demands.  As we celebrate our Mothers it is good to remember that the most powerful kind of authority comes from a mother’s example.  Who a mother is and what she does is more powerful with her children than what she demands and the rules that she makes.  A bride recently told me that her mother raised her and her brother as a single parent.  She said that her mother had sacrificed her own ambitions to the almost impossible tasks of being both parents to two growing children.  She said that she owed everything she is to the unselfish love of her mother.   It seems to me that that mother has real authority with her daughter.

True freedom is possible only when it is structured and guarded by authority.  For the authority that the Holy Spirit brings to our Church and to our lives we give God thanks and praise