Newsletter 6th Sunday of Easter (Year A) 10th May 2026

Newsletter 6th Sunday of Easter (Year A) 10th May, 2026.pdf

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Gospel Reflection by Fr Doug Harris ...

Today’s readings remind us of the importance and value of the Holy Spirit.  It appears that the prince of the world, Satan, and his demons have taken control of the world.  In order to reclaim the world for Christ, His disciples are called to be, according to the prophecy St Louis de Montfort, much greater than the saints of the past.  For this reason, God is pouring out the Holy Spirit on each person, without measure, as He did with Our Blessed Mother, so that, we become One with the Holy Spirit even as the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit are One. The role of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, is to make us One in Christ so that we can continue His Mission (which is to restore all things into union with Him and re-establish His Kingdom on earth). Scripture promises that in the future there will be a Second Pentecost which will form the apostles of the Latter Days who will outshine in holiness all the saints of the past put together.  These saints will have a holiness like Our Blessed Mother.  Our Blessed Mother is the ideal of a human full of the Holy Spirit.  The Bible says she is “full of Grace” or “full of the Holy Spirit.”  (She loved her Son with all her heart, mind, soul and strength.) Being Immaculately conceived, she was not subject to the fall of Adam and Eve, the fall of creation, the separation of heaven from the earth.  Even while she lived in this world, she was not subject to it.  This is also the state of our Guardian Angel, for example, whom Our Lord said: “Don’t despise a little child, for I say to you; their angels in heaven always see the “Face of God.”  The Angels can see beyond that wall or veil which separates us from seeing heaven.  Our Blessed Mother described herself to Luisa Piccaretta in Italy in the 1930’s “as inseparable from my Creator”, and “I had my heaven within me.”  In other words, even though Our Blessed Mother lived on this earth she also enjoyed heaven.  Being in heaven she experienced a profound union with God as the Angels and Saints in heaven do, or as Adam and Eve did before the Fall. Our Blessed Mother was able to experience heaven while still living on the earth, then, as one would expect, there have been others who have experienced heaven while still alive. One example is Roy Schoeman.  Roy’s parents were Jews, who had fled from Europe to the USA to escape the holocaust.  As a young man he was a devout Jew, attending the Synagogue at every opportunity.  However, after school he found joy in the things of this world and his faith faded away. At Harvard Business School he graduated at the top of his class.  In 1987 he took a walk near a beach when he found himself in the presence of God.  He said, “It is as if I fell into heaven.”  He said he was more aware of heaven than he was aware of this earth. He said God’s Kingdom – heaven, was more real than his kingdom on earth.  Heaven was so real, that He could not understand how he doesn’t always see heaven and he could not understand how every person doesn’t see Heaven. I will now read from Roy’s own words: “I felt myself in the immediate presence of God.  I was aware of His infinite exaltedness and of His Infinite and personal love for me.   I saw my life as if I was looking back on it after death, in His presence, and could see everything which I did which was good and everything which I wished I had done differently…I saw that everything which had ever happened in my life had been perfectly designed for my own good from an infinitely wise and loving hand of God, especially those things which I, at the time, thought had been the greatest crosses or difficulties.” Our Lord today is giving us the Holy Spirit, or the Grace not to live the ways of this Kingdom but to live the ways of His Kingdom. At Mass today, when our Lord is present on the altar, after the Consecration, all the Angels and Saints will be present.  (Heaven will have descended on earth).  Therefore, although we will still be living on the earth, we at Mass, will also be living in heaven.  If our hope is only in what this kingdom on earth can offer, then we may never find fulfilment because our true home is not of this kingdom, our true home is in God in His Kingdom. Therefore, the aim of the Holy Spirit is to restore all of us, and all creation, to union with God as it was before the fall.