spread the Gospels

The making of promises is part of special celebrations that mark the days and weeks of spring and the Easter season.

As we celebrate graduations, ordinations, weddings, baptisms and first Communions, we hear and witness our friends and loved ones making promises to God, to persons and to the church.

The promises we make shape the direction of our lives. Most importantly, our promises give us a place within the great and loving promises of God.

As the church celebrates the Ascension of the Lord, we read from the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where Luke recounts Jesus’ instructions to his disciples — that they wait for “the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

What an astonishing promise that must have been for the disciples to hear and to understand! Jesus is promising the gift and the power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity who is the love of the Father and the Son, given as the soul of the evangelizing church and the source of divine life within every believer.

In the Gospel, Jesus gives his “great commission” to the disciples and to the church when he said, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

This call of Jesus is the reason for the church’s existence. That is, the church exists to witness to the world the good news of faith in Jesus Christ as the answer to the question that resides within, and is, every human person. And as Jesus sends his disciples out to baptize and to teach in his name, he makes a divine promise that surpasses all human promises. For Jesus says, “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

We have the promise of the Holy Spirit, and we have the assurance that until the end of time Jesus is with us, drawing close and walking with us as he did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Now, we only have to respond to Jesus’ invitation to be his witnesses in our words and deeds so that we become his missionary disciples in the world.

For the gift of Jesus’ promises to be with us and to send the Holy Spirit, we pray with joyful faith, “Speak to me, Lord.”

Pope speaks of resistance to Vatican II, need to condemn sex abusers

ROME (CNS) — Punishing and condemning those guilty of abuse is an act of charity, Pope Francis said.

“The abuser is an enemy. Each of us feels this because we empathize with the suffering of the abused,” he said during a private meeting with 32 Jesuits April 29 during his three-day trip to Budapest, Hungary. Those guilty of abuse “deserve punishment, but they also deserve pastoral care.”

As is customary during his trips, the pope spent time with local Jesuits, answering their questions; the transcript of the encounter was published May 9 by La Civiltà Cattolica, an Italian Jesuit journal. “The abuser is to be condemned, indeed, but as a brother. Condemning him is to be understood as an act of charity,” the pope said. This is how love for the enemy can be expressed, but it is still not easy to grasp and live out.

Another confrere asked the pope about the Second Vatican Council and how it discussed the relationship between the church and the modern world.

Pope Francis said that “the council is still being applied,” and it will probably take many more decades for its teachings “to be assimilated.” The problem, he said, “the resistance [to its decrees] is terrible. There is an unbelievable [support for] restorationism, what I call ‘indietrismo’” or the desire to go back in time.

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Father Jaime Zarse, from pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Sabetha, St. Augustine Parish in Fidelity and St. James Parish, Wetmore, to pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Shawnee.

Parochial administrators

Father Mohana Rao Bathineni, from parochial vicar at Curé of Ars, Leawood, to parochial administrator of St. Joseph Parish, Olpe, and St. Mary Parish, Hartford.

Parochial vicars

Father Andrew Gaffney, from co-chaplain of St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Overland Park, to continuing as parochial vicar for Prince of Peace Parish, Olathe.

Father Wilson Garnica Rodriguez (Diocese of Zipaquirá, Columbia), from ministry outside of the archdiocese, to parochial vicar for Blessed Sacrament Parish, Kansas City, Kansas, and Our Lady of Unity, Kansas City, Kansas.

Father Michael Kantanka (Archdiocese of Kumasi, Ghana), from ministry outside of the archdiocese, to parochial vicar for Holy Trinity Parish, Lenexa.

Deacon Colm Larkin, from completion of seminary formation and ordination to the priesthood of Jesus Christ, to parochial vicar for Church of the