WITH ONE ACCORD IN ONE PLACE

 A SERMON FOR WHITSUNDAY

“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.”  After our blessed Lord ascended into heaven, the eleven remaining Apostles did as they had been commanded.  They returned to Jerusalem and to the Upper Room where they had celebrated the Last Supper of our Lord the night he began his final sufferings.  Here, they were joined by other disciples of our Lord, as well as what St. Luke describes simply as “the women.”  These were the holy women who had followed our Lord during his life, faithfully keeping his teachings in their hearts.  Only one of these women is actually named by St. Luke, and that is “Mary, the Mother of Jesus.”  Our Blessed Lady deserves special mention in this first assembly of the our Lord’s faithful followers, she who was the most faithful, the only one, in fact, whose faith had never wavered, even during the darkest hours of the Crucifixion.  She was now accorded a special place among the apostles, and would play a crucial role in the events of the first Pentecost.

Meanwhile, let’s turn our attention to those first words of today’s lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, namely, that “they”—the Apostles and all the other disciples, men and women, who assembled in prayer for the nine days between the Ascension and the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost—they, were all with one accord in one place.”  It’s worth mentioning, and for this very important reason: all these men and women were with one accord, in total agreement about their faith.  There was no dissent, no arguments about what to do, what to think, what to believe.  They acted, thought and spoke as one.  And this is a remarkable thing.  Human nature being what it is, people tend to enjoy finding things to disagree on.  But not in this case.  And we don’t have to look very far for the reason…

Before our Lord ascended into heaven, he appointed the leader of the apostles, Peter, as his Vicar on earth, the one who would take his place, representing him with all the weight of Christ’s divine authority and the infallibility of his revealed teachings about God and the ways of man.  The very first act of the new Pope is described in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter stood up and used his authority to announce that an election must take place to choose a replacement for the traitor Judas Iscariot.  For just as there were twelve tribes of Israel, so had our Lord selected twelve Apostles to be the judges of these twelve tribes.  Now that one of them had betrayed him, it was essential that before the Church was born again of the Spirit at Pentecost, it should have a full complement of twelve Apostles.  And so they drew lots, and St. Matthias was chosen to replace Judas.  But it’s important to note that this particular “act of the Apostles” didn’t just happen.  It happened because St. Peter stood up and explained why it had to happen.  No arguments, no dissent—they were all “with one accord.”

This is how human nature works.  We like to follow the leader.  The sheep follow the shepherd.  And without a leader we are lost, endlessly arguing and disagreeing about this, that and the other.  The shepherd has been struck and the sheep are scattered.  It happened to the Jews who did not accept their Messiah and who persisted in their betrayal of the new covenant between God and man.  The diaspora of the Jews, that terrible fate whereby the twelve tribes of Israel were scattered around the world and lost their identity, that diaspora was precisely the effect of their refusal to acknowledge that Christ was their king and Peter their Pope.  The same thing happened to the Protestants who broke away from the Church to found their own new religions—there is only one Church, but the Protestants are now split into hundreds of different denominations—Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Mormons, and so on and so on.  Strike the shepherd and the sheep are scattered.  And let’s not forget what has happened since Vatican II, when the actions of one bad shepherd after another has forced the faithful to flee from the poison these shepherds are feeding them.  Now, through no fault of our own, we faithful Catholics are leaderless.  And because we have no leader, we immediately resort to discord and division.  It’s the way of things.  How can it be otherwise, when we acknowledge no leader with the authority to resolve disputes?  These divisions we suffer in the traditional Church today are inevitable, but that does not mean that they are good.  They are, rather, a necessary evil, the unavoidable result of our popes and bishops betraying us.

What can we do about it?  We must simply do as the first Christians did when faced with the betrayal of Judas.  They got together with all those who were in agreement with them.  “With one accord in one place.”  It’s what we are doing right now, here in this little chapel.  We gather to pray and worship our Creator in the way our Saviour taught us.  We remain faithful to the true Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ.

On the first Pentecost Sunday, the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, and descended upon the heads of these men and women who were in accord and in one place.  The fire of the Holy Ghost enkindled in them the fire of God’s love, and the Church was born, the Church entrusted to St. Peter, the Church composed of all those who are in one accord about what to believe, how to act, how to worship.  We who are in agreement on these things taught by our Lord are the members of his Church, his Mystical Body.  Have no fear when those who have betrayed him tell us that it is we who are the traitors, who have fallen away from the Church, who don’t “follow the Pope.”  Let our response be one of tranquil acknowledgment that indeed we are not following anyone who would lead us away from Christ our true and divine head, and that we are and will continue to be members of his true Body, the true Church that was born on that first Pentecost so many years ago.