Sixth Sunday of Easter

I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. Jesus says this to people who are about to lose him, and he names the exact fear: orphans. Not alone in a general sense. Orphans - people who have lost the parent who was the center of their world. He names it and refuses it in the same breath. I will come to you. The Advocate he promises is the Spirit of truth, and the gift of the Spirit is the continuation of that refusing: you will not be left without the one you depend on.

Philip goes to Samaria and there is great joy in that city. Then Peter and John come from Jerusalem and lay hands on those who have been baptized, and the Holy Spirit falls. The joy of Philip's preaching and the healing of the crippled was the beginning. The laying on of hands completed what had been started - the full gift of the Spirit given through the apostolic community. Your family's faith follows this same pattern: what begins at the font grows through the ongoing life of the Church, through prayer and sacrament and community, deeper into the Spirit already given.

Today is Mother's Day. The psalm says: blessed be God who refused me not my prayer or his kindness. Every mother who has prayed for a child - through the sleepless nights, through the years of watching and waiting, through the grief of watching someone she loves make choices she cannot control - has been praying the psalm. He refused me not my prayer. The kindness endures. What Timothy's mother handed on in a mixed household in Lystra is what every mother who prays hands on: the faith that runs ahead of the child into the generation that is coming.

• For our family, that the promise Jesus makes tonight would be ours: I will not leave you orphans; the Spirit of truth will be in you, we pray to the Lord.
• For every mother in this family and in our parish, especially on this day, that the God who refuses not our prayers would keep all they have prayed for their children, we pray to the Lord.
• For those who long for the Spirit's fullness - who have been baptized but have not yet known the great joy Philip's Samaria knew - that the laying on of hands would be their experience too, we pray to the Lord.
• For those who need to give a reason for their hope this week, that Peter's counsel would shape the giving: with gentleness and reverence, from a clear conscience, we pray to the Lord.

Peter says: sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts first. Always be ready to give a reason for your hope - but only after the interior life is in order. Tonight, before anyone can ask for reasons, simply sanctify him: a few minutes of quiet, a prayer of surrender, an acknowledgment that he is Lord of the household. Then, if anyone asks about the hope you carry, you will answer from the inside out rather than the outside in.

I will not leave you orphans. Jesus said it to people about to lose their center. It is also the word for every parent who wonders what will happen to their children's faith when they are no longer there to tend it. The Spirit of truth will be in them. You are not the only one watching over what you have planted. The Advocate remains.