It is graduation season.
All the kids from the high school are graduating this week;
next week, our own kids here at St. Simon will be graduating
and in the next weeks, you will see young people graduating
from college and universities from all over the place.
It is just that season.
If you talk to any of these young people,
there is a certain excitement about their graduation;
the end of what has been and the beginning of something new.
Some have been at these schools for 4 years, like a high school or college
but some of our kids have been here10 years.
They are excited to leave; they are ready to go.
There is a certain excitement about it.
They have had their time here;
they have enjoyed it and they are ready to move on.
Also, if you talk to them, they are a little anxious too;
they do not quite know what high school is going to be like.
They hear all about it and they have visited there
and they are excited but there is a little bit of trepidation
and a little bit of anxiety going on at the same time.
That is true when there is any transition for us. Right?
When we are beginning something new,
we are also letting go of something old. Right?
For these kids, they have been very comfortable here for 10 years.
In their comfort, they have grown and
they have become, hopefully, a better person,
a better version of themselves but also now, that is coming to an end.
Now there is a newness;
they are called to grow,
to step out of that comfort and
to grow into something new in school.
It is in that sense of tension of the excitement and anxiety
that the disciples are experiencing today with the feast of the Ascension.
Just to get the background, they haven’t been there for 10 years
but for 3 years, they have been walking with Jesus.
And for those 3 years, they have come to know him
and love him and follow him;
and believed that he was the Messiah.
Then he gets crucified.
And they get scared and most of them run away
but Jesus comes back at the Resurrection,
appears to them, and gathers them;
and for 40 days, they have been living on a high.
They have had Jesus back in the Spirit and
they think this is the new, this is it and they are so on fire.
Then he turns around and says, no.
This is not going to be the permanent state,
reminding them that there is always change
but I am going to give you the gift of the Spirit,
the Advocate that the Father gives, I give to you.
We know we are going to celebrate Pentecost next Sunday
but it would have been on Thursday so it would have been 10 days
and that is traditionally how we have celebrated it.
But in fact, the disciples did not know exactly how long that took.
They had to live in that tension of being in between;
of having experienced this and
yet not quite having received the Holy Spirit;
so that tension of great excitement and anxiety
is also present among the disciples.
So what did they do? They prayed.
They are in the temple, worshiping God;
they are there in anticipation, in prayer,
and getting ready for the change;
to receive this gift of the Holy Spirit
that helps them to embrace the change.
We have all gone through those major transitions in our lives
and if you think about it, everything in life is a change.
We are constantly changing and
what the Holy Spirit does is assure us to trust in the Holy Spirit;
to trust in God’s Providence that the goodness will come true here
and to cooperate with that flow of the Holy Spirit
and to allow it to flow through us.
That sounds so easy but it is kind of hard
when we are the subject of the change.
I am reading this book and
I am not actually going to recommend it to you yet
because not everyone would like it;
but it is about the intersection of quantum physics and faith.
I love quantum physics so I’m a nerd when it comes to that.
But it is really fascinating how it talks about
how the universe has this flow;
we would call that the Holy Spirit, the Divine Providence
that allows for the flow.
Scientifically, it can be proven.
There is a flow that happens in the universe.
As people of faith, we say that is the Holy Spirit
and God’s grace at work; God’s Providence.
But the author comes up with this little acronym
that I am going to steal for this as to how to do it.
He comes up with an acronym called: LORRAX.
L for Listen. O for Open. R is to reflect.
2nd R is to release. A is to act. X is for infinity,
which is to repeat the above over and over again
because you are endlessly changing.
Bear in mind, people find this hard to understand
but there is nothing that is fixed in this life.
Nothing at all is fixed, everything moves.
Not a rock as everything in constant motion.
If we think we are still, we are not.
We are spinning.
Earth is spinning on its own axis that is spinning around the sun
and that is spinning in the galaxy.
So we are always in motion.
We do not feel like it but we are always in constant motion.
There is a flow in the universe that makes it all work;
As people of faith we call it the Holy Spirit to flow through us.
Pope Francis has really encouraged us as individuals
to listen this Holy Spirit at work flow throuhg our lives.
Even more so, as a Church we need to listen to each other.
He launched the Synodal process
which is a process of listening to one another.
Bear in mind that as we do this Synod that for some churches,
it is the first time they have ever listened to their people.
First time in 2,000 years they have listened to the people they lead.
So, how does LORRAX help us:
Listen. What are we listening to?
We are listening to one another and
we are listening to what we need to change
to be the best version of ourselves.
Open. Being open to what?
Being open to something new.
It is going to be something we have never heard of;
nothing we have ever experienced before.
It is having an openness to the newness of life,
which is always vibrantly new.
Reflect. We reflect on what we have listened to
and what we are called to be open to
and we see how is the Lord and the Holy Spirit calling me to change.
How is the Lord calling us as a Church to change today?
To meet the needs of the Church today?
And the young people.
Release. To release what?
To release our old versions;
to release our old ways of doing things;
to release our old ego or what Thomas Merton calls a false ego,
to release it has to be all about me.
Instead receive the true ego,
which is that we are a child of God.
Act. The “A” is to act on what we have heard
and to discern what we have listened to.
X=Infinity.
To repeat that over and over and over again.
And that is what we are called to do in the Holy Spirit
because the spiritual life is one of constant growth and change.
Today as we are kind of in between Ascension and Pentecost,
we are in transition for sure;
we know we have the Holy Spirit
but can we take that LORRAX to heart and
listen to what God is calling us as individuals to grow and transition;
to be open to a new way of being a disciple;
to reflect on what the Lord is asking us to do;
release the old way of doing things and
then be ready to act; and repeat that over and over again.
That is the gift of the Spirit constantly new and flowing in our life.
Let us flow with the Holy Spirit—LORRAX.
