Lent-Eastertide Journey Completes with Pentecost: A Pastoral Psychological Perspective

Veni, sancte spiritus!  Veni creator spiritus! Come Holy Spirit!

We awaits the coming of the Holy Spirit. We wait for the Holy Spirit to be poured upon us! We prepare for Pentecost to conclude the 50 days of Eastertide.

Eastertide is the post-resurrection spiritual journey for us to cultivate and renew our object relation to Jesus, through prayer and reflection of his Word. In fact, given the continuity between Lent and Eastertide, in terms of the nature of our spiritual journey, Pentecost is the finale of the Lent-Eastertide spiritual journey from Ash Wednesday, passing the Paschal Triduum into the post-resurrection Eastertide toward Pentecost – so that we can stand on our feet to bear witness of the Lord, whom we are so intimate.

Through this blog article, I want to reflect our spiritual journey toward Pentecost juxtaposing the flow of the Eastertide Gospel readings to a path of object relationship development in psychology.

So, let’s begin the review with this question:

What did Lent prepared us for?     Of course, Easter!

So, we spent 40 days from Ash Wednesday, purifying our hearts, cleansing our sins, letting our sinfulness and defilement die, projecting on Jesus, the Lamb of God, who died on the Cross.  That was Lent. Then, on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, by the power of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father.  Our new life with clean heart also sprung upon letting our old sinful life die. That was how the 50 days of Eastertide began, as Lent gave its way to Easter.

Then, what has Eastertide prepared us for?  Ascension and Pentecost!

For the first 40 days of Eastertide, we have gotten much closer to Christ, the risen Lord.

As he did to the disciples walking to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), Jesus has helped us better understand his teaching through the Gospel readings throughout Eastertide (John 20:1-9 (Easter Sunday); John 20:19-31 (2^nd Sunday of Easter – Divine Mercy Sunday); Luke 24:35-48 (3^rd Sunday of Easter); John 10:11-18 (4^th Sunday of Easter – Good Shepherd Sunday); John 15:1-8 (5^th Sunday of Easter); John 15:9-17 (6^th Sunday of Easter); Mark 16:15-20 (Ascension – Ascension Sunday in place of the 7^th Sunday of Easter); John 17:11b-19 (7^th Sunday of Easter)) .  For the first three Sundays, Jesus assured us that he is risen and comforted us. Then, for the rest of Sundays during Eastertide, until Ascension, Jesus explained his object relations with the Father and with us.  Jesus described his object relation with the Father as a secure attachment. Then, Jesus describes his object relation with us in the same pattern as his with the Father – a secure attachment. For this, he used a metaphor of a shepherd and sheep. He also used another metaphor of the vine and its securely attached branches. For the shepherd-sheep relational metaphor, the Father is the one who commissioned the shepherd and provided sheep. For the vine-branches metaphor, the Father is the vine grower.

Upon describing his object relations with the Father and us, Jesus goes on to explain the essential quality of the relationship that put the Father, him (the Son), and us.  He tells that it is agape – as in his mandatum novum (John 13:34).  During the Last Supper, Jesus first demonstrated what he means by loving each other as he has loved through his washing of the disciples’ feet (John 13).

Jesus reiterated the new commandment to love one another as he has loved to tell us what it means to be the branches attached to him the true vine.  It is what makes our relationship to each other harmonious. And, Jesus further challenges us to take this loving each other command to the level of sacrificing our own lives for each other, as he, the Good Shepherd lays his own life for his sheep.

With this, Jesus feels that we are ready to handle his departure – until his return (parousia)  at the end of time.  He thinks that now our attachment with Jesus is secure enough to let Jesus return to the Father to be seated at the right hand of Him. In an analogy of developmental psychologies of Jean Piaget, now our spiritual growth is mature enough to recognize Jesus’ constant close presence, even though he is no longer physically present.  So, using Piaget’s term,  I call that now we are at the point of spiritual object permanence. Of course, as John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth describe what secure attachment between a mother and her child enables, it is our secure attachment with Jesus enabling us to know that his physical absence in our sight does not mean abandoning.  To put it in Erik Erikson’s term, our secure attachment with Jesus means a firm trust between us. And, the secure attachment, characterized with mutual trust, enables us to attain spiritual object permanence, upon his Ascension.

In fact, for the 4^th Sunday (Good Shepherd Sunday), 5^th Sunday, and 6^th Sunday, the Gospel readings  are aimed for us to ensure that we cultivate healthy object relation with the risen Christ, characterized with our spiritual maturity founded upon secure attachment to Christ and based trust. Because of this foundation,  by the end of the 6^th week of Eastertide, Jesus feels confident about our spiritual maturity to demonstrate our spiritual object permanence to accept his Ascension, without suffering from traumatic grief.

When Jesus died on the Cross, we suffered from traumatic grief, compounded with our guilt and remorse for our sins, which killed him. Our grief was so severe, in part, due to a lack of our spiritual maturity and not developing health object relation with Jesus upon trust-based secure attachment.  However, this time, we have grown in faith and matured in spirit, as we have cultivated healthy object relation with Christ, based on trust-filled secure attachment, upon his resurrection.

So, here we are, we are able to let Jesus depart from us through Ascension, so that he can move on to his eschatological mission as his next call by the Father.  It is reflected in Revelation 19, the Parousia.  This is, in fact, foretold in John 14:1-4, 28.  Jesus makes it clear in these verses of John’s Gospel that his Ascension is to prepare for the end of time and to secure our place in heaven upon the Judgement.

Additionally, Jesus also explains meaning of his Ascension in regard to the Holy Spirit, which completes the object relations of Jesus with us in Trinity.

Basically, Ascension of the risen Christ is an absolutely necessary step for  Parakletos to come to us.

Up to this point, the Holy Spirit was pneuma, which is a neutral term in Greek in the New Testament. Preceding the New Testament time, the Holy Spirit was ruah, which is a feminine Hebrew word, ever present since before God began His creation (Genesis 1:2). Ruah also gave life to Adam, as it came in the form of Creator God’s breath, as ruah is the divine breath of life (Genesis 2:7). At that moment, the prototype of flesh (clay) became the living flesh as the Holy Spirit, ruah, was infused in, animating it. This scene in Genesis is evoked again, on the evening of Jesus’ resurrection, as the risen Lord put his breath (pneuma) upon the disciples, calling his breath as the Holy Spirit (John 20:21-22), as in the Gospel reading for Pentecost Sunday.

In this regard, as what ruah Elohim the (the breath/life/ Spirit of God) did to clay to become animated flesh of Adam in Genesis 2:7 is renewed as the risen Jesus breathes upon his disciples in John 20:22, as a precursor to Pentecost.  With these scriptural connection, now we can see  ruah Elohim, pneuma, and parakletos are essentially the same.  Also, considering these to be on the same spectrum running from the Genesis on to the point of Pentecost, we now understand  how ruah Elohim (the breath of God in the Old Testament) evolves into parakletos (the Holy Spirit, as Advocate, Comforter, and Counselor, as promised by Jesus through Ascension for Pentecost) , though these are the same pneuma tou theo/theopneustos (the breath of God, the God-breathed condition).  Focusing on this consistency of the Holy Spirit, stemming from the very beginning in Genesis is so critically important for us to attain spiritual object permanence upon Ascension and for parakletos to come upon us on Pentecost.

Understanding the consistency of the Holy Spirit is the very essence of our object relation with Jesus, the Son, and the Father. Thus, this is the bottom line of our object relation to the Triune God.  In this, we understand that manifestation of God may transmorphs or even transmogrify but God Godself in His essence as in the ruah-pneuma-parakletos consistency is immutable, as Thomas Aquinas’ argument in Summa Theologica Question 9.

Just before Jesus Ascends, he assures, too, that we are never be left like orphans (John 14:18). Upon his departure from us in flesh, he also promises that we will remain with us in spirit, given the consistence in Jesus’ messages in John 14:16,20, 15:4, and Matthew 28:20. For this, he teaches us that Pentecost, the infusion of the powerful Holy Spirit, ruah-pneuma-parakletos, upon us is a proof of his pre-Ascension promise, which we have come to better understand through the Eastertide Gospel readings.

So, Jesus instructs to be still and wait for the Holy Spirit to come and to be poured upon us. Namely, this is the baptism of the Holy Spirit that fortifies the effects of the Sacrament of Baptism.

Jesus had to Ascend for Pentecost to happen on us as said in these words: “Unless I go away, the Parakletos (Advocate, Counselor, Comforter) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).

Now, what does Pentecost equip us  for with the Holy Spirit as the power, as said in Acts 1:8?

Mission!  It’s our mission to build the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven!

The Gospel reading for Ascension (Mark 16:15-20), which is also comparable to Matthew 28:16-20, sums up what Ascension prepared us for, which is Pentecost, does.

As Jesus’s physical presence on earth goes away from the world through Ascension,  Pentecost becomes possible to take place  in the world so that we, the believers, receives the power and whatever else necessary to carry on the mission of the Lord – until his eschatological return (parousia) in Revelation 19. The mission is to build the Kingdom of God, the web of agape-filled object relations with one another, reflecting the Father-Son secure attachment (i.e. John 10:30, 38; John 14:10; John 17:21). Its ultimate essence is agape that is strong enough to give our own lives for our love objects, as exemplified by Jesus (John 10:11, 15:13). What makes our agape strong enough to be able to lay our own lives down for each other, our love objects in our object relations in faith, is the Holy Spirit as the power (Acts 1:8) and shepherding of Parakletos (John 14:26).

As the He breathed into the clay to bring life to Adam (Genesis 2:7), and impregnated Mary with God incarnate, Jesus, the Son (Matthew 1:18), as risen Jesus breathed upon the disciples (John 20:22), the Father is about to pour his mighty ruah-pneuma upon us on Pentecost, as our Parakletos to give new birth to the Church, whose fabric is our agape-based object relations. 

So, upon receiving the powerful Holy Spirit poured upon us, we become so energized and loaded with manifold gift of the Holy Spirit. Our response to Pentecost, therefore, is charismatization!

Through charismatization by the Holy Spirit, we have become more mature being in faith, fuller in our agape-based object relation in our Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

Remain in Christ’s Agape – Remain as the Branches of Christ the True Vine for Complete Joy and Love

Last Sunday (5th Sunday of Easter - Year B) and this Sunday (6th Sunday), the Gospel readings are taken from John 15. In the last Sunday's Gospel reading, Jesus described his object relations to us and to the Father as how the vine grower, the vine, and its branches are related. Now, in the Gospel reading for this Sunday, Jesus explains the essential quality of the object relations. And, it is agape, strong enough to make joyful self-sacrifice for our love objects. And, this is to perfect joy and love, aspects of fruit of the Spirit.

******

In the Gospel reading for the 5^th Sunday of Easter (Year B), John 15:1-8, Jesus described his relationship to the Father and to us with a metaphor of the vine grower, the  vine and its branches.  The Father is the vine grower, Jesus, the Son, is the true vine, and we are the branches attached to the vine.  Now you can image that the Kingdom of God is like a vine yard, where there is the true vine.

There may be other vine yards. But, none of vines growing these places is the true vine.  These vine yards with false vines are where Satan likes to mislead us by manipulating and corrupting our hearts and minds. To explain this with a Buddhist’s Yogacara psychology (唯識心理学), Satan likes to work on the Manas-vijnaana (末那識), deep in our mind, to create illusions to make us mistake  a false vineyard for the true vineyard.  Otherwise, we would seek a source of our security in material things, falling into idolatry to live in a false sense of security.

Unless we choose to be misled and seek false security in a false vineyard, we securely attach ourselves to Jesus, our true vine, as it is the way that we abundantly bear fruit (John 15:2). As I indicated in my May 5, 2015, blog article, “Post Resurrection Christological Revelation and Our Relationship to Him through Eastertide Sunday Gospel Readings”, the vine-and-branches-like object relation between Jesus and us are psychologically characterized as what John Bowlby* and Mary Ainsworth** describe as secure attachment.

As health psychological development of a person stems from a secure attachment that a mother (or primary caregiver substituting a mother) and her child forms, our healthy spiritual and faith grows out of a secure attachment between God and us, through our secure attachment to Christ.  Tim Clinton and Joshua Straub elaborate well on this topic in their “God Attachment: Why You Believe, Act, and Feel the Way You Do About God” ***.

What Jesus metaphorically described as the vine-branches relationship for the 5^th Sunday of Easter Gospel (Year B), John 15:1-8, is characterized with secure attachment. Just as a healthy emotional growth stems from a secure mother-child attachment (Bowlby, 1982, Ainsworth, 1989), our faith and spiritual development comes out of the secure attachment to God (Clinton and Straub, 2010).

Following this from the 5^th Sunday Gospel narrative (John 15:1-8), the 6^th Sunday Gospel reading for Easter (Year B), John 15:9-17, tells the essence of this vine-branch relationship that characterizes our secure attachment to Christ. In this Gospel narrative, Jesus reveals the quality of his relationship to the Father and us. In other words, Jesus explains what holds the Father, Jesus, and us, together, as the vine grower, the true vine, and the branches.  And it is love, as ἀγάπῃ /agape, the way the Father loves Jesus, who loves us in the same way. 

In John 15:10, Jesus invites us to remain in his love (ἀγάπῃ /agape) just as he himself remains in the Father’s love (ἀγάπῃ /agape).

The web of the whole Christian object relations stems  from the Father’s love.  The web of the Christian object relations, characterized with love (ἀγάπῃ /agape) that Jesus commands as mandatum novum (John 13:34) is another image of the Kingdom of God, and its nucleus is the Father-Son (Jesus) love (ἀγάπῃ /agape).  

The Father has sent the Son, Jesus, to this world, through the incarnation in the immaculate womb of Mary, to ensure that we are in and remain in His love, which the Son, Jesus, is securely attached to.  So, it has been Jesus’ mission to invite and bring us into his love, which is also the Father’s love, in which he is securely in.  This is what Jesus means by saying that he is the true vine, as we are its branches (John 15:5). Remaining in Jesus’ love (John 15:10), which is also the love of the Father, is what Jesus means by saying that we are the branches to the true vine (John 15:5). Thus, there is a juxtaposition between John 15: 5 and 10, as the true vine means the love of Christ.

As branches to a vine look similar, we resemble Christ, our true vine, to which we are securely attached to, by observing his commandment to love each other, as he loves us and the Father loves him.  This way, we become abundantly fruitful branches.

So, what is a fruit we can bear?

According to Jesus, it is not just a joy but the complete joy, which is his joy (John 15:11).

It is interesting to note that the joy that Jesus describes as a result of observing his command of love in John 15 is echoed by Paul in Galatian 5. Paul teaches joy as a part of multifaceted fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), which characterizes our life by the Spirit. And, this life by the Spirit, as Paul describes, is also the true freedom in Christ (Galatians 5:1-15). For this, Paul reminds us of what makes us the branches attached to the true vine, what keeps us in him and in his love. And it is to observe the command of Jesus – to love one another as he has loved us (Galatian 5:14; John 13:34; John 15:12).

But, for the complete joy (John 15:11), which is echoed by Paul as the true freedom (Galatians 5:1-15), in remaining in Christ’s love, in the true vine, loving one another as our neighbors, as our fellow branches of Christ the true vine,  must be practiced in a way to lay our own lives for others (John 15:13). This is because the bottom line of the love that Jesus practices for us is sacrificial love, the love of  the Good Shepherd who  lays his own life (John 10:11), as read in the Gospel for the 4^th Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday).

What enables Jesus to lay his own life – to practice sacrificial love – agape – for us is the quality of his own secure attachment to the Father. It is that the Father and Jesus are in one (John 10:30), as the Father is in him, and he in the Father (John 10:38). In fact, this is the very quality of our secure attachment to Jesus, as his branches, so that we, too, can lay our own lives for one another. And this is the essence of what characterizes the web of Christian object relations, which is what the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven is about.

That is why, once again, Jesus  commands us: Love each other (John 15:17), so that we can be fruitful branches, producing abundant manifold fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

On the contrary, attaching ourselves to a false vine, such as idol or what idol represents, and being misled by a false spirit to a false vine yard, we would find none of these. In such a false vine yard, there is only a narcissistic pleasure, which may lead to self-destruction through addictive behaviors, as it would keep us blind to true joy and love.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all things we need will be added to us (i.e. Matthew 6:33). In the Kingdom, we understand complete love, ἀγάπῃ/agape, is our true joy, as we become able to practice joyful sacrifice for others, reflecting these words of Padre Pedro Arrupe, SJ, “hombres por demás”(people for others), as our way of observing Jesus’ command of love to remain in his love – to be his branches.

*****

*Bowlby, J. 1982. Attachment and Loss: Attachment. Vol. 1 (2ndedition). New York: Basic Book.

**Ainsworth, M.D.S. 1989. Attachment beyond infancy. American Psychologist, 44:709-716.

***Clinton, T. E.  & Straub, J. (2010). God Attachment: Why You Believe, Act, and Feel the Way You Do About God. New York: Howard Books

Post Resurrection Christological Revelation and Our Relationship to Him through Eastertide Sunday Gospel Readings

For the first three Sundays of Eastertide (Year B), Gospel readings are about how the disciples reacted to the Resurrection (John 20:1-9: Discovery of empty tomb; John 20:19-31: Doubting Thomas had to his finger into the wound mark of the risen Jesus to believe; Luke 24:35-48: Risen Jesus ate fish to prove that he was not a ghost). Then, there is a shift in the Sunday Gospel reading for the rest of the Eastertide on the 4^th Sunday, which is also known as Good Shepherd Sunday.

The Gospel readings for the 4^th Sunday and the 5^th Sunday describe on how Jesus relates himself not only to us but also to the Father. In other words, these two Sundays Gospel narratives remind us how we are related to Christ, the Son, and the Father in heaven, and to each other, through metaphors.

First, through the shepherd metaphor on the 4^th Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday), John 10:11-18, Jesus relates himself to us in a shepherd-sheep relation, commissioned by the Father.

It is not an ordinary shepherd-sheep relation. In fact, Jesus is not just a shepherd but the Good Shepherd, who lays his own life to save his sheep – to save us, as we are his sheep.

Why does Jesus sacrifices his own life for his sheep? Because he love them – because he love us – so much! And, he has already laid his life on the Cross to save us, on Good Friday! It was Father’s will that Jesus faithfully acted. Father’s will on us is salvific. The Father entrusts the Son, Jesus the Christ, His sheep, as his sheep, by giving them to him. In other words, the Father, who has created us, entrusts the Son, to take care of us and save us.

Following this Good Shepherd metaphor on the 4^th Sunday, Jesus further elaborates on his relationship with us and the Father in the Gospel narrative for the 5^th Sunday through a vine metaphor (John 15:9-17).

As Jesus is the Good Shepherd to us, who are his obedient sheep, Jesus is the true vine, and we are the branches securely attached to him. This is how Jesus and we are related. Then, Jesus metaphorically describes how he and we are related to the Father by describing Him as the vine grower.

The Father in heaven is the one who commissions and entrusts the Good Shepherd, Jesus, to care for us, in the 4^th Sunday’s Gospel reading. Now, the Father is the vine grower, who maintains His vineyard and its true vine, Jesus, to whom we are securely attached not only to stay alive but to bear much fruit.

This secure attachment of the branches to the true vine metaphorically represent our psychospiritual secure attachment to Jesus. Granqvist et al. (2012)* compare our healthy secure attachment, as the branches, to the true vine, Jesus, to John Bowlby’s (1969)** internal working model. In other words, the quality of our relationship with Christ, our true vine, while we are his branches, can be juxtaposed to the internal working model of attachment theories of Bowlby and his student, Mary Ainsworth (1991)***.

This secure attachment to Jesus, as the branches are attached to their vine, is our sure way to the Father (John 14:6) and where the Father dwells – the Kingdom.

The branches receive all necessary water and nutrients to stay alive and to bear fruit. For us, it is the Holy Spirit, and its gifts (Isaiah 11:2; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11). To these gifts we receive, namely, grace from God, we are called to bear much fruit. And it is the fruit of love, as the 6^th Sunday’s Gospel reading (John 15:9-17) tells that our secure attachment to our true vine, Christ, means to remain in his love.

So, we now ask ourselves: How can we bear fruit of love as the branches of the true vine, grown by the Father in heaven, using His grace, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we received through the true vine?

The Kingdom of God comes on earth, as it is in heaven, when it is the time for harvesting the abundant fruits we bear.

The old vineyards (i.e. Isaiah 5; Matthew 21:33-46) were not fruitful and thus destroyed by God. To replace such old bad vineyard, the Father elected the Son, as the true vine, in His vineyard, as we are the branches of this true vine. And, this metaphor echoes the new pasture where Good Shepherd tends his sheep in John 10, as commissioned by the Father, who provides him with the sheep, us.

What Jesus means by “remaining his love” is to remain securely attached to the true vine (5^th Sunday Gospel) and to remain in the herd of the Good Shepherd (4^th Sunday Gospel).

********

*Granqvist, P., Milulincer, M., Gewirtz, V., & Shaver, P.R. (2012). Experimental findings on God as an attachment figure – Normative processes and moderating effects of internal working models. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 804-818

** Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. New York: Basic Books

***Ainsworth, M.D.S., & Bowlby, J. (1991). An ethological approach to personality development. American Psychologist, 46, 331-341