In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Prior to the Lord’s Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the three disciples, through the mouth of Peter, confessed Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16; see also Mark 8:29, Luke 9:20) The Lord hears this confession of Faith and explains to them only at this point that he will die and they must take up their crosses and follow him. Then he leads them up the mountain and is transfigured before them. This is to say the vision of God, his personal revelation to us, follows a confession of Faith.
We have reached, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, a between phase, a middle period, between the Ascension and Pentecost, we await the coming of the Holy Spirit, the final and complete revelation of God to humanity. And to remind us that we need to make our own confession of Faith beforehand—our own declaration that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” prior to the final revelation of God—the Church sets before us two images, the Holy Fathers of the First Council held in Nicea and the High-Priestly Prayer of the Gospel according to John. The Lord, as he prays before his passion, shows us the path to God: “Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me,” says Christ, “that they may be one, even as we are one.” Because it is not by vague promises to work together, not as a team riven with internal divisions, not as a body whose members are cut off from one another, but as being one, as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one. One in mind, one in Faith, one in ritual, one in action—each according to his part, the hand operating as a hand and not as a knee—all united in purpose: that we may be one.
The Holy Fathers knew this. The Holy Fathers experienced the pain of division, of heresy attacking the Church. And they saw fit to expound for us the Faith which had been once and for all delivered to the saints (see Jude 3). In their great love for the Church they gave to her, to us, the first part of the Symbol of Faith, the Creed, which was completed at the following Council.
And we must look and consider, are you making a proclamation of Faith? Before expecting to receive the Holy Spirit are you passively waiting or with longing are you professing Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God? Am I? Are we giving honour and glory to the Lord who was incarnate, died and rose from the dead? Or are we hoping for the best, sat and waiting for another to work.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today, along with the Holy Fathers of Nicea, along with generations of Christians make our proclamation of Faith in the Lord that we too may receive the vision of God by the power and operation of the Holy Spirit.
May our risen and glorified Saviour, Jesus Christ, lead us to true knowledge of the Father by the indwelling and operation of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In those days, Paul had decided to sail past Ephesos, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. And from Miletos he sent to Ephesos and called to him the elders of the church. And when they came to him, he said to them: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities, and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by so toiling one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ” And when he had spoken thus, he knelt down and prayed with them all.
— Acts 20:16–18, 28–36
At that time, Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work which you gave me to do; and now, Father, you glorify me in your own presence with the glory which I had with you before the world was made. I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world; yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you; for I have given them the words which you gave me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you did send me. I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are mine; all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
— John 17:1–13