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Wolves, the Flock and Hope
Many Catholics today look at the Church with a mixture of love, concern, frustration, and hope. We see division, confusion, declining participation in some places, scandals that continue to wound trust, and a culture that often seems increasingly distant from faith. In such a moment, the words proclaimed in the daily Mass from Acts of the Apostles and Gospel of John speak with surprising force and relevance.
Saint Paul the Apostle warns the leaders of the early Church: “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth…” At first hearing, these words can sound discouraging. But Paul is not describing a failure unique to our own time. He is reminding us that from the very beginning the Church would face dangers both from outside and within. The early Christian community was never idealized as perfect or free from struggle. Even in the apostolic age there were conflicts, false teachings, betrayals, fear, ambition, and weakness. That realization can actually steady us. The Church’s present struggles, painful as they are, do not mean Christ has abandoned his people.
In the Gospel, Jesus Christ prays: “Holy Father, keep them in your name… that they may be one.” Before his Passion begins, Jesus already sees the fragility of his disciples. He knows they will scatter, misunderstand, and struggle. Yet he does not reject them. He entrusts them to the Father’s care. That prayer still echoes through the life of the Church today.
We live in an age of immense noise and confusion. Catholics can easily become drawn into ideological camps, online outrage, suspicion, or discouragement. Sometimes we begin to speak and act more from political identity or cultural fear than from the Gospel itself. Paul’s warning about those who distort truth remains relevant because every age faces temptations to reshape Christianity according to the spirit of the times or according to anger and division.
Jesus’ prayer reminds us that the Church is not sustained merely by human strength, strategy, or institutional success. The Church endures because Christ continues to pray for his people and the Holy Spirit continues to work within them. This does not mean ignoring the Church’s failures or pretending problems do not exist. The wounds are real. The need for reform, repentance, and accountability is real. But despair is not a Christian response. The answer to the Church’s crises has always been holiness.
Every age has had its “wolves”: falsehood, pride, corruption, fear, division, or compromise. And every age has also produced saints.Ordinary believers who remained faithful, prayerful, charitable, and courageous in difficult times. The challenge for Catholics today is not simply to complain about the darkness, but to become more deeply rooted in Christ through prayer, sacraments, truth spoken with charity, unity rather than factionalism, and through lives that quietly witness to hope.
The Church has always been both fragile and protected. Fragile because it is made up of human beings protected because it ultimately belongs to Christ. And that is why, even in uncertain times, Christians are called to move forward not with naïve optimism, but with hope.
Image credit: Duccio di Buoninsegna – Appearance on the Mountain in Galilee | ca. 1310 | Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo, Siena | Public Domain
Peace be with you
This coming Sunday is Pentecost with the gospel reading taken from the Gospel of John. While the first reading (Acts 2:1-11) describes the events we associate with Pentecost Sunday, the Gospel of John account tells of the appearance of Jesus following of the events that took place at the tomb in the early morning of the first day of the week (John 20:1–18). There near the empty tomb of Jesus, the risen Savior first appeared to Mary Magdalene. Our gospel contains the second and third appearances of the risen Jesus. These three appearances take place in Jerusalem. There is a fourth and final appearance of Jesus later in a section referred to as the “Epilogue” of John. This appearance is at the “Sea of Tiberias” in Galilee (John 21).
The people involved in the Johannine scene in the garden, despite the testimony of Mary Magdalene, are locked in a room for fear of the Jews (20:19). The proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection has not dispelled the fear. The “we” and “they” of v.2 are still active forces in the account. The disciples (we) have not overcome the fear that the Jewish leadership (they) have created throughout the Passion.
The Johannine account of the first post-resurrection appearance to the gathered disciples is linked to the events of the Resurrection by the simple expression “that first day.” As the startling and disturbing events of the last three days had unfolded the community’s overriding response was fear. They had gathered, but had locked themselves away out of fear of what persecutions the religious authorities might bring against them. It is into this complex of uncertainty, perhaps doubt and hesitation, that Jesus appears
“Peace be with you” is in some way a conventional greeting (cf. Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:3; Gal 1:3) used by St Paul in his letters as a reflection of a standard option for the opening of a Greek letter. But here the greeting has an additional purpose – Jesus is fulfilling a promise from his Farewell Discourse: his gift of peace (John 14:27). The peace is given to a community who will experience the world’s opposition always and its persecution often. The gift of peace is an explicit reminder that their way in the world will be graced with the enduring promise of Christ.
The biblical idea of “peace” is complex, but peace is not simply the absence of war or hostilities. Peace is a positive notion in the biblical sense and has meaning of its own. At its root, the biblical idea of “peace” stems from the Hebrew šālôm which means to be hale, whole and complete [AYBD 5:2-6]. The Greek word eirene (peace) appears in almost every writing of the NT. It describes a relationship of goodwill between God and humans.
The Fourth Gospel affirms that peace is intimately related to Jesus himself. It is a gift related to the commission to forgive sins (20:19, 21, 26) and go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit, but also before his death he promises them: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” (14:27). The difference between the world’s peace and that of Jesus is not explained, but it has to do with John’s notion of the world (kosmos). “In the world you will have trouble. But take courage! I have conquered the world” (16:33). In Christ peace is available to them. The difference must not be drawn along philosophical lines, as if the peace of Christ “has nothing to do with the absence of warfare nor … with an end to psychological tension, nor with a sentimental feeling of well-being” (Brown, 653). Caesar’s peace enforced by violence is not the same as the peace of Christ which derives from his victory over evil through the absorption of suffering. The two are dramatically different ways of bringing peace.
Prior to his death, Jesus told his disciples they would all be scattered and abandon him (16:32). Jesus was alone before the high priest and eventually before Pilate as he was condemned to death. The disciples, and especially Peter who had denied him three times (18:17–18, 25–27), would have felt deeply ashamed that they had abandoned Jesus in his hour. Thus when Jesus appeared to them behind locked doors, his greeting of ‘Peace be with you!’ showed he was not holding their failures against them; rather, he was offering a restored relationship – that they remained in the goodwill of God.
“When he had said this, he showed them his hands and side.” By showing them the nail prints in his hands and the spear wound in his side Jesus removed any doubt they had that the one who stood before them in that locked room was Jesus crucified but now risen from the dead. He predicted that the disciples’ sorrow at his death would be turned to joy following his resurrection (16:20–22), and now “the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”
Image credit: Fr. Ted Bobash, pravolavie.ru, CC BY-SA
The High Priestly Prayer
Over that last two weeks and more we have heard passages from the Gospel of John that together are known as the “Farewell Discourse.” The discourse covers four chapters and often seems to be repetitively redundant. Today’s gospel is known as the beginning of the “High Priestly Prayer” and our passage is worth considering in some detail. So perhaps this is more bible study than homily.
The prayer takes place at the end of the Last Supper discourse, just before Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and begins his Passion. In this prayer, Jesus speaks directly to the Father, allowing the disciples and the reader to hear the intimate relationship between the Son and the Father. It is theologically rich, but it is also deeply personal and pastoral. It is almost as if Jesus could have begun “Let us pray.” It is like the Collect of the Mass coming before the Sacrifice and the Eucharistic Prayer.
Jesus prays concerning his own glorification (vv. 1–5) “Father, the hour has come” (v. 1) The “hour” in John’s Gospel refers to the moment of Jesus’ Passion, Death, Resurrection, and glorification. Throughout this Gospel, Jesus repeatedly says his hour “has not yet come.” Now, at last, it has arrived. The striking thing is that Jesus speaks of the Cross not primarily as defeat, but as glory. The glory of God is revealed in Jesus’ obedience, his self-giving love, and the revelation of the Father’s mercy. In John’s Gospel, the Cross and glory are inseparable.
One of the most important verses in the Gospel appears here: “This is eternal life…” How would you finish the verse? What would be your answer to someone who asks “what is eternal life?” The verse continues: “…that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”
Eternal life in John is not simply endless existence after death. To “know” in biblical language means far more than intellectual knowledge. During the Mass there is a wonderful prayer said by the priest as he prepares the Cup. As he pours the water into the wine, he prays: Through the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who came to share our humanity.” It is that prayer that through the grace of the Eucharist we may come to know God and ultimately somehow share in the divine life of the Trinity. To “know God” implies intimacy, trust, covenant, and communion. Eternal life is participation in the life of God through Christ – and it begins in the Eucharist.
The disciples and the Father (vv. 6–10) Jesus says: “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me.” In biblical thought, a person’s “name” represents the person’s identity and character. Jesus reveals who the Father truly is. Throughout the Gospel the Father is shown as loving, merciful, life-giving, faithful, and wants to save the world. The disciples have come to believe that Jesus was sent by the Father. Even though their understanding is incomplete, faith has begun.
Jesus also says: “They do not belong to the world”. In John, “the world” can mean humanity loved by God, but it can also refer to the system of unbelief and resistance to God. The disciples still live in the world physically, but their identity is now rooted in Christ. Their values and loyalties are changing. This becomes an important theme for Christian discipleship: being present in the world but not shaped entirely by its spirit.
Jesus prays for the protection and unity of the disciples (v. 11) Jesus prays: “Holy Father, keep them in your name… so that they may be one just as we are one.” Unity is one of the central themes of John 17. Jesus desires that his followers share in the communion that exists between the Father and the Son. This unity is not merely organizational or social. It is spiritual and rooted in divine love, truth, and shared mission. Jesus also prays for protection because the disciples are about to face fear, persecution, confusion, and the scandal of the Cross.
“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help” (Hebrew 4:14-16)
Here in this passage you see the Great High Priest begin his eternal work. Remain in communion with Him and offer up your prayers and petitions who knows us and prays for us.
Image credit: Duccio di Buoninsegna – Appearance on the Mountain in Galilee | ca. 1310 | Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo, Siena | Public Domain
John’s Pentecost
The first reading for Pentecost Sunday is the account from Acts 2 so familiar to every Christian. Luke’s account is a very public event compared to the very private Johannine account. The Lucan account occurs 50 days after the Resurrection. The Johannine account occurs on the evening of the same day as the Resurrection.
Why the difference? Some scholars defend the basic historicity of the entire Lucan narrative; others conclude that it is essentially Luke’s theological attempt to explain the coming of the Spirit, not an historical account of actual events. Some, holding to the historicity of the Lucan account in Acts 2, hold that John’s account is symbolic only. The Second Council of Constantinople (AD 533) condemned the view of Theodore of Mopsuestia that Jesus did not really give the Spirit on that Easter evening but acted only figuratively and by way of promise. Some, like John Chrysostom, held that the giving of the purpose was for one particular gift or another; others have said that Easter’s coming of the Spirit is personal while Pentecost is ecclesial or missionary. And another set of scholars posit a narrower coming of the Spirit targeting special gifts intended for specific ministry (e.g., the forgiveness) versus a more general coming of the Spirit as a blessing and empowerment for the larger Johannine ministry of discipleship: love and holding to the commandments of Jesus. Some simply conjecture that since John is not overly concerned about date/setting but rather the theological implications, that the Johannine account is the same event – John has simply re-located the events.
The Roman Catholic view coincides with its theological sense of “both-and”. In a sense the very order of the Readings for Pentecost Sunday (Year A) outlines the sense of “both-and” as follows:
- Acts 2:1-11: the general coming of the Spirit
- 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13: the variety of gifts given – personal, ecclesial, missionary and more
3 Therefore, I tell you that nobody speaking by the spirit of God says, “Jesus be accursed.” And no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the holy Spirit. 4 There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; 5 there are different forms of service but the same Lord; 6 there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. 7 To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit; 9 to another faith by the same Spirit; to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit; 10 to another mighty deeds; to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another varieties of tongues; to another interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes.
- John 20:19-23: the gifts given for specific ministry, e.g., continuation of the priesthood of Jesus is those that the community raises up for that particular ministry – in this case, the Catholic tradition sees the Sacrament of Reconciliation given to particular ministers to celebrate in the name of the community
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. 23 Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Dr. Matt Skinner of Lutheran Seminary offers a great insight, referring to this scene as “The Spirit, at last.” He writes that:
In John, this is an incredibly weighty and long-anticipated scene. The Baptizer introduced Jesus in John 1:33 as “the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” Jesus himself has said that his ability to give the Holy Spirit “without measure” would offer proof that he is from God and speaks the words of God (3:34). He promised that “rivers of living water”–a metaphor for the Spirit–would flow from his innermost being. And of course Jesus has had much to say about the coming “Advocate”:
- It is “the Spirit of truth,” who dwells with believers forever yet cannot be received by “the world” (14:16-17).
- It is the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father, who will teach Jesus’ followers everything and remind them of all he told them (14:26; cf. 16:13).
- It is the Spirit, whom Jesus sends “from the Father,” and who testifies about Jesus and equips people to offer testimony about him (15:26-27). This Spirit glorifies Jesus (16:14).
- It is He who can “prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment” (16:8-11).
The close connections John draws among Jesus’ promises about the Spirit, his glorification and ascension, his intimacy with the Father, and his commissions to his followers caution us not to skip over “the Johannine Pentecost” too casually, as if it serves merely as a final “Good bye, and good luck” from Jesus to his friends.
With this culminating scene, the christological climax of John’s Gospel (Jesus’ departure as the exalted Christ) is part and parcel of the Gospel’s apostolic impulse (the equipping and sending of the men and women who believe in him). That is, in the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ followers receive nothing less than the fullness of the glorified Son. Their lives (ours, too) can therefore accomplish ends similar to his life’s, insofar as they reveal God.
Image credit: Fr. Ted Bobash, pravolavie.ru, CC BY-SA
Widows and Orphans
The words of today’s Psalm reveal something essential about the heart of God: “The father of orphans and the defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling. God gives a home to the forsaken.” This is not a small theme hidden in Scripture. It is one of the great threads running through the entire Bible. Again and again, God reveals himself as the protector of the vulnerable, the forgotten, and those who have no one else to defend them.
In the ancient world, widows and orphans were among the most powerless members of society. They often had no legal protection, no financial security, and little social standing. Yet God repeatedly identifies himself with them. In the Law of Israel, the people are commanded: “You shall not wrong any widow or orphan.” In Scripture, again and again, God tells his people that if the vulnerable cry out to him, he will hear them. Why? Because this reflects who God is.
We see this throughout the Old Testament. In the story of Ruth and Naomi, God cares for two vulnerable widows through the kindness and faithfulness of Boaz. In the ministry of the prophet Elijah, God provides food for the widow of Zarephath during famine. Again and again, God acts not only through miracles, but through people who make room in their lives for the suffering and forgotten.
Then, in the New Testament, this same divine compassion becomes visible in the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus notices those others overlook. He stops for beggars. He touches lepers. He speaks with sinners. He feeds the hungry crowds. He raises the son of the widow of Nain because he is moved with compassion for her grief.
Even on the Cross, Jesus does not forget the vulnerable. Seeing his mother standing there, he entrusts her to the beloved disciple so that she will not be left alone.
The early Church understood that caring for the vulnerable was not optional charity; it was part of Christian identity itself. The Acts of the Apostles describes the community caring daily for widows. And the Letter of James says: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction.”
The Church has always understood that worship of God and care for the vulnerable belong together. We cannot praise the God who defends widows and and at the same time ignore those who are lonely, poor, abandoned, or burdened around us. Most of us may never encounter literal orphans or widows in the biblical sense, but every day we meet people who feel forgotten: the elderly person no one visits, the struggling parent, the immigrant far from home, the prisoner, the grieving, the lonely, the anxious, the poor, the person quietly carrying suffering that no one sees.
To imitate God means learning to notice them.
Often the Lord’s work begins in very ordinary ways: a listening ear, a visit, a meal, a word of encouragement, an act of patience, generosity, or mercy. The Psalm says God “gives a home to the forsaken.” As Christians, we are called to help create that home not only in buildings, but in the way we welcome others into dignity, friendship, and hope.
When the Church lives this way, people begin to glimpse the face of God himself: the Father of orphans, the defender of widows, and the one who never abandons the forgotten.
Image credit: Duccio di Buoninsegna – Appearance on the Mountain in Galilee | ca. 1310 | Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo, Siena | Public Domain
Pentecost and the Festival of Weeks
This coming Sunday is Pentecost with the gospel reading taken from the Gospel of John. The Greek name (pentēkostē) refers to the Jewish Feast of Weeks. The name itself means “50th” and is taken because the festival occurs 50 days after Passover (Acts 20:16; 1 Cor 16:8). Because the early Christians received the baptism of the Holy Spirit on this day, the term is now more commonly used to refer to that event recounted in Acts 2:1–13 and celebrated on Pentecost Sunday.
The Feast of Weeks was the second of the three great Jewish feasts. Its name signified that it concluded the period of seven weeks which began with the presentation of the first sheaf of the barley harvest during the Passover celebration (Lev 23:15–16; Deut 16:9). Thus it was originally an agricultural feast marking the end of the grain harvest and was celebrated during the month of Sivan (May/June). Both Josephus (Ant 3.10.6 §252; JW1.13.3 §253) and Jewish intertestamental writings (Tob 2:1; 2 Macc 12:31–32) refer to the feast as Pentecost. [AYBD 5:222-23]
During the Hellenistic period (324-64 BC), the ancient harvest festival also became a day of renewing the Noahic covenant, described in Genesis 9:8-17, which is established between God and “all flesh that is upon the earth.” By this time, some Jews were already living in the Diaspora (living in countries other than Israel itself). According to Acts 2:5-11 there were Jews from “every nation under heaven” in Jerusalem, possibly visiting the city as pilgrims during Pentecost. This group of visitors included both Jews and converts to Judaism.
In 70 AD, the Roman armies conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. At this point in history the offering of grains in the Temple as part of the festival was no longer possible. While this day continued to be celebrated, after the destruction of the Temple, the day commemorated the reception of the Law by Moses.
Image credit: Fr. Ted Bobash, pravolavie.ru, CC BY-SA
Seven Reasons Why
There is something special about when the Church celebrates solemnities. Christmas is tangible. Good Friday is emotional. Easter is triumphant. The Ascension is … is … to be honest it can sound like Jesus simply “going away.” It is easy to hear it as a kind of spiritual farewell: Jesus finished his work, returned to heaven, and now we wait until we join him someday. But the Church celebrates the Ascension as a central moment of the Paschal Mystery because it tells us something essential about Christ, about ourselves, and about the meaning of daily life right now.
Often I give three reasons why things should matter, but it is a solemnity, so seven seems like a good number to explain why the Ascension still matters deeply in 2026.
1. The Ascension means humanity now has a place in the life of God
The Ascension is not Jesus escaping the world. It is humanity entering into the glory of God. The risen Jesus ascends with his human nature still united to him. The wounds remain. The Incarnation is permanent. Human life, our humanity, is now taken into the communion of the Trinity. That means heaven is no longer merely a distant spiritual realm. In Christ, human life itself has been brought into the heart of God.This matters because many people today experience life as fragile, disposable, or meaningless. The Ascension proclaims the opposite:
- human life matters eternally,
- the body matters,
- history matters,
- our struggles and sufferings matter.
Our destiny is not annihilation or absorption into nothingness. Our destiny is communion with God.
2. Christ is not absent. He is present differently
One of the misunderstandings about the Ascension is the idea that Jesus “left.” But in the New Testament, the Ascension is not about absence. It is about a new mode of presence. Before the Ascension, Jesus was physically present in one place at a time. After the Ascension and the gift of the Spirit, Christ becomes present to the whole Church across the world and through time: in the Eucharist, in Scripture, in prayer, in the poor, in the gathered Church, and through the Holy Spirit to mention a few. The Ascension prepares for Pentecost. Christ does not abandon the Church; he fills it with his own life. For everyday life, this means Christianity is not merely remembering someone from the past. Christ is alive and active now.
3. The Ascension gives meaning to ordinary earthly life
The Ascension does not tell Christians to ignore the world while waiting for heaven. In fact, the opposite is true. Just before ascending, Jesus sends the disciples on mission: “You will be my witnesses.” The disciples do not stand staring at the sky forever. They return to Jerusalem and begin the life of the Church. The Ascension teaches that holiness is lived in ordinary human life: work, family, service, relationships, acts of justice and mercy, and daily faithfulness. Christ reigns not apart from human life, but over it. Therefore ordinary life becomes the place where discipleship happens.
In 2026, many people feel caught between anxiety, division, exhaustion, distraction, and uncertainty about the future. The Ascension reminds Christians that history still belongs to God and that faithful daily living still matters.
4. The Ascension changes how we understand power
In the world, power is often measured by dominance, wealth, visibility, popularity, projection of power or control. But the Ascended Christ still bears the wounds of crucifixion. The one seated at the right hand of the Father is the same one who washed feet, forgave sinners, welcomed the marginalized, and suffered on the Cross. The Ascension reveals that sacrificial love is not failure. It is the deepest form of glory. This matters because modern culture often rewards self-promotion and strength without compassion. The Ascension proclaims that humility, mercy, truth, and love participate in the reign of Christ.
5. The Ascension says we already live between earth and heaven
The Ascension creates a tension at the center of Christian life. We still live in the world with all its beauty and pain: wars continue, people suffer, injustice persists, and death remains real. Yet Christ is risen and glorified. Christians therefore live with hope without denying reality. The Ascension teaches us to live with our feet firmly on earth while our hearts remain anchored in God. This prevents two extremes: despair, as if evil has the final word, or escapism, as if earthly life does not matter. The Christian lives in hope-filled engagement with the world.
6. The Ascension means the Church has responsibility now
After the Ascension, the disciples cannot simply wait passively. The Church becomes the visible sign of Christ’s presence in the world. This means Christians are called to continue Christ’s work: feeding the hungry, defending human dignity, forgiving, proclaiming the Gospel, building peace, caring for the vulnerable, and living as witnesses to hope. The Ascension is therefore not the end of Christ’s mission but the beginning of the Church’s participation in it.
7. The Ascension reminds us where history is going
Modern life often feels fragmented and directionless. Many people experience history as chaos with no larger meaning. The Ascension says history has a destination. The final word over humanity is not violence, death, fear, or division, but the reign of the risen Christ. This does not remove suffering from the present moment, but it changes how Christians endure it. Hope becomes possible because Christ has gone before us.
A bonus spiritual insight
The disciples at the Ascension stand between memory and mission: They remember what Jesus has done but they are also sent forward into the future. That remains the Christian condition today. The Ascension invites believers not to stare upward waiting to escape the world, but to live differently within it – with hope instead of despair, courage instead of fear, purpose instead of aimlessness, and love rooted in the living presence of Christ.
The Ascension is not simply about where Jesus went. It is about what we are called to become.
Image credit: Jesus’ ascension to Heaven depicted by John Singleton Copley in Ascension (1775) Public Domain
Lightning
Now at the cusp of the Stanley Cup Finals, you might think this is going to be an article about my beloved Tampa Bay Lightning. Were that it was, but alas the Lightning lost in the first round to the Montreal Canadians. No worries. I have a backup team: Carolina Hurricanes. I trust you see the weather connection from my home state, Florida. Tampa is “the lightning capital of the world” and the State is often the target of tropical storms and hurricanes.
But this musing is about the natural phenomena, lightning. Take a moment to ponder what causes lightning. Do you remember the basic explanation we learned as young inquiring minds? If my memory serves me, after a discussion about Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment, we were offered an explanation similar to the basic one still offered today.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), lightning is a massive burst of static electricity caused by the separation of positive and negative charges within a storm cloud. As updrafts and downdrafts crash ice and water particles together, negative charges build up at the bottom of the cloud and positive charges gather at the top. When the charge becomes strong enough to overcome the air’s natural insulation, it releases a spectacular electrical discharge. That matches up with what I remember from elementary school science and memories of Van de Graaff generators – a device that causes the accumulation of very high-voltage, low-current electricity on a hollow metal globe. When the charge reaches a critical level lightning bolts emerge in a mesmerizing display.
But lightning, it seems, is far more interesting.
NASA’s Wind Satellite is a space-based laboratory for long-term solar wind measurements. It monitors solar flares that shoot out from the sun allowing scientists to analyze the particles that stream from the sun’s surface. It is a phenomenon not that dissimilar from lightning, or so it seemed to scientists living in lightning-rich areas of the world… such as Florida and other locales across the globe. By the way, it is estimated that there are 2,000 lightning strikes per hour each day across the planet. There’s a lot to study.
The Wind Satellite results pointed to an avenue of research that said there was more going on than just separating positive and negative charges like a planetary Van de Graaff generator. Astrophysicists began to take their space-focused instrument built to study violent cosmic events and began to use them to study thunderstorms and lightning. These new studies have recorded X-rays emanating from lightning and flickering patterns of gamma rays resident in thunderclouds. The scientific world began to question if lightning was more than super-sized electrostatic sparks. Electricity has a role to be sure, but the question was what was the spark that initiated the spark that initiated the lightning. Typical thunderstorms have just a tenth the electric juice needed to spark, and the strongest fields ever measured reach just a third of the critical intensity. It turns out that the entire physics toolbox might have a role – from particle physics to cosmic events such as supernovas and black holes.
The basic idea is that an electron in the storm cloud collides with an atom amidst an already underway stream of atoms in what might be termed an avalanche, The electron ricochets and emits a gamma ray. That gamma ray transforms into an electron and its antimatter twin, a positron. The cloud’s electric field would push the positron backward close to where the avalanche began. There it could crash into another atom, setting off another avalanche, which would make more gamma rays, more positrons, more avalanches, and so on, until you get lightning.
Of course that just leads one to ask, why the avalanche in the first place. There are several competing theories, I am partial to the one that speculates (based on solid field research) that cosmic-ray showers are the initiator. “These showers are the end result of violent events in deep space, such as the expulsion of particles from feeding black holes or stellar explosions that fire off a piece of atomic shrapnel. Perhaps a proton from an exploding star, or a denuded iron atom expelled from a supermassive black hole. After their cosmic travel across the universe, they slam into Earth’s atmosphere.” [Wood] The violent collision sprays a jet of electrons, positrons, and other particles down into a cloud with enough energy that the resulting electrons and positrons could have enough kinetic energy to separate the electrons from their molecules and get an avalanche going, even if the electric field stays well below the critical threshold.
Ancient civilizations thought lightning was an indication of warfare among the gods. In a way they weren’t all together wrong. Lightning may well be an indication of cosmological events “way up there” millions of light years away.
As for the Tampa Bay Lightning…. there is always next year.
Source credit: What Causes Lightning, Quanta Magazine, Charlie Wood, May 2026.
Image credit: murat4art | iStock photo ID:2274303724 | downloaded May 16 2026 | standard iStock licensing
Christmas and Ascension – Life Lessons
Fr. Antony Kadavil, in a 2019 post from Vatican News, wrote: “The Ascension is most closely related, in meaning, to Christmas. In Jesus, the human and the Divine become united in the Person and life of one man. That’s Christmas. At the Ascension, this human being – the person and the resurrected body of Jesus – became for all eternity a part of who God is. It was not the Spirit of Jesus or the Divine Nature of Jesus that ascended to the Father. It was the Risen living Body of Jesus: a Body that the disciples had touched, a Body in which He Himself had eaten and drunk with them both before and after His Resurrection, a real, physical, but gloriously restored Body, bearing the marks of nails and a spear. This is what, and Who, ascended. This is what, now and forever, is a living, participating part of God. That is what the Ascension, along with the Incarnation, is here to tell us – that it is a good thing to be a human being; indeed it is a wonderful and an important and a holy thing to be a human being. It is such an important thing that God did it. Even more, the fullness of God now includes what it means to be a human being.”
Fr. Kadavil went on to offer “life messages” from the gospel of the Ascension:
1) We need to be proclaimers and evangelizers: In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives this mission to all the believers: “Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” This mission is not given to a select few but to all believers. To be a Christian is to be a proclaimer and an evangelizer. There is a difference between preaching and proclaiming. “We preach with words but we proclaim with our lives.” As we celebrate the Lord’s return to His Father in Heaven – His Ascension — we are being commissioned to go forth and proclaim the Gospel of life and love, of hope and peace, by the witness of our lives. On this day of hope, encouragement and commissioning, let us renew our commitment to be true disciples everywhere we go, beginning with our family and our parish, “living in a manner worthy of the call [we] have received.”
2) We need to live a life of Christian joy in the presence of the ascended Lord. According to Luke, the disciples “returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” Apparently Jesus’ exaltation and final blessing gave them, as it gives us, the assurance that, though absent, Jesus is still present, present even in the pain and sorrow we undergo. That is why St. Augustine assures us, “Christ is now exalted above the Heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his Body, have to bear. He showed this when he cried out from above: ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?’ and when he said: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food.’ While in Heaven he is also with us; and while on earth we are with him. He is here with us by his Divinity, his power and his love. We cannot be in Heaven, as he is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love.”
3) We have a teaching mission: Jesus taught us lessons of Faith, Hope, forgiveness, mercy, redemption and Love. We cannot put these lessons on a shelf and ignore them. They stand before us in the person of Jesus. Although no longer visibly present in the world, Jesus is present in his words., and we must make these words real in our lives as well as in the lives of others. Christianity was meant to be a Faith in which Jesus’ followers would help and care for others, just as Jesus had done. But the spreading of the Good News to all nations is not a goal that can be attained by human might and craft. This is why Jesus promises to empower the Church with His abiding presence and that of the Holy Spirit. The challenge of sharing the Good News with all mankind should, therefore, begin with our admission that we have often been arrogant and overbearing. We must learn to be humble and let the Holy Spirit lead the way.
4) The ascended Jesus is our source of strength and encouragement: Perhaps some of the nagging doubts which inevitably accompany the journey of Faith could be lessened by our meditating on the Ascension and its implications. When we are too far from Faith to pray on our own, let us remember that we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous, praying for us. When the trials of life feel too heavy to bear, we must remember that Christ will come again in glory, the same glory in which Jesus arose from the tomb, the same glory to which Jesus ascended, and the same glory in which Jesus currently abides. Though our limited perception might find him absent, Jesus is fully present, participating in every moment of our lives. By His Ascension, Christ has not deserted us but has made it possible for the Holy Spirit to enter all times and places. In this way it is possible for each of us to be transformed by the power of the Spirit into agents or instruments of Christ. We become enlivened, and our actions become animated in a new way by the Spirit of the God we love and serve. We have become other Christs in the world. (Fr. Antony Kadavil)
Image credit: Jesus’ ascension to Heaven depicted by John Singleton Copley in Ascension (1775) Public Domain
Whatever we ask
In today’s gospel we read: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.” (John 16:23). It seemed like a “blank check” for our prayers and the intercession of Jesus. What is the context, what are the limits, and are there any caveats? Continue reading
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