6th Sunday of Easter, Year C
1st Reading: Acts 15:1-2, 22-29
At this Council, the leaders made decisions with the consent of the congregation
Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this?
Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.
Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
Responsorial: Psalm 66: 2-3, 5-6, 8
R./: O God, let all the nations praise you!
O God, be gracious and bless us
and let your face shed its light upon us.
So will your ways be known upon earth
and all nations learn your saving help. (R./)
Let the nations be glad and exult
for you rule the world with justice.
With fairness you rule the peoples,
you guide the nations on earth. (R./)
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you.
May God still give us his blessing
till the ends of the earth revere him. (R./)
2nd Reading: Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23
In his exile on Patmos, John paints a dazzling picture of the new Jerusalem
And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, one hundred forty-four cubits by human measurement, which the angel was using. The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
Gospel: John 14:23-29
Our Lord’s words at the Last Supper, in view of his imminent departure
Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.
A goodbye
French vocabulary is sometimes more precise than English. “Goodbye” is a case in point. The French use
Au revoir for those everyday temporary separations, while
Adieu is reserved strictly for final departures; it means roughly “until we meet in heaven.” Life is a succession of
Au revoirs and
Adieus . The number of the latter grows with the passing years. Our hearts and memories are peopled with faces that once were dear to us. Some, like our parents, died. Others moved away out of our lives never to reappear again. If their names crop up in conversation we say, “I wonder what became of so-and-so.” They may say the same about us too. Life is a series of little deaths until our own death which for us will be the last great
Adieu .
We are, as never before, a pilgrim people, on the move. We need faithful friends who travel with us. In today’s gospel, Jesus alerts his disciples to his imminent departure, his ascension into heaven. He doesn’t say
Adieu but
Au revoir . “I am going away, but I shall return.” We never really say goodbye to God, for God always goes with us.
Notice how immigrants who leave their families, friends, language and cultures and settle, often penniless and in a hostile environment, on the other side of the globe, begin by building houses of worship. Such was the case with the Irish in America or Australia. Such is the case today with immigrant Muslims building mosques all over Europe. God is what they cling on to.
God keeps his promise to be with us always. He will always keep his side of the bargain. It is up to us to keep ours. And when we come to the end of our pilgrimage here and have to make our last goodbye, it will be literally
Adieu, “going to God.”
Listening and responding
Obedientia, the Latin for obeying, literally means to listen hard, to hold one’s ear to something. The first rule of the road that we all learned was “Stop! Look! Listen!” Before you cross the railway tracks, stop and listen. There may be a train coming.
“I am leaving you with a gift — peace of mind and heart.” What a beautiful promise, what a special gift. Peace is not the absence of war. It is the presence of something real and tangible. It is something I can experience, and it results from having my relationships the way they ought to be. I will deal in greater detail with this later.
We are all familiar with invitation cards that have RSVP on them. The person is looking for a response from us. Every word that Jesus speaks is calling for a response. A rule of thumb is to learn to listen, and then listen to learn.
My response must be practical; it must entail doing something. Believing something up in my head is nothing more than mental assent. Knowing that Jesus is God is not faith. Satan knows that. Faith is not up in the head; it is in the heart, and it eventually makes its way down into my feet. It is only then that I will be prepared to step out, and act on the direction given me by Jesus. The message of the gospel is simple, definite, and direct. There is not one “maybe” or one “might” in all the promises of Jesus.
The power of relationship
John’s Gospel has a higher theology than the three synoptic gospels. But the remarkable fact is not its strong theological slant but how early in the Church’s history such a Trinitarian perspective emerged. By the time of St. John the idea of God linked the Father, Jesus and the Paraclete, the guarantor of the peace that Jesus has given.
Already we have hints that God is a community of relationships, that there is so much knowledge and love in God that the knowledge and love transform into distinct personages. This truth is revealed to enlighten our minds, not to provide theologians with raw material for speculations (nothing wrong with that), to dazzle us with the brightness of God’s glory, the power of God’s knowledge and the passion of God’s love. The use of the word “spirit,” a translation of the Hebrew
Shekinah hints at a maternal aspect in God as the word is feminine and was used in Hebrew folk religion as the name of Yahweh’s consort. St. John hardly thought of this, yet the gender of the noun might well be part of the meaning.
6th Sunday of Easter, Year C
1st Reading: Acts 15:1-2, 22-29
At this Council, the leaders made decisions with the consent of the congregation
Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this?
Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.
Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
Responsorial: Psalm 66: 2-3, 5-6, 8
R./: O God, let all the nations praise you!
O God, be gracious and bless us
and let your face shed its light upon us.
So will your ways be known upon earth
and all nations learn your saving help. (R./)
Let the nations be glad and exult
for you rule the world with justice.
With fairness you rule the peoples,
you guide the nations on earth. (R./)
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you.
May God still give us his blessing
till the ends of the earth revere him. (R./)
2nd Reading: Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23
In his exile on Patmos, John paints a dazzling picture of the new Jerusalem
And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, one hundred forty-four cubits by human measurement, which the angel was using. The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
Gospel: John 14:23-29
Our Lord’s words at the Last Supper, in view of his imminent departure
Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.
A goodbye
French vocabulary is sometimes more precise than English. “Goodbye” is a case in point. The French use
Au revoir for those everyday temporary separations, while
Adieu is reserved strictly for final departures; it means roughly “until we meet in heaven.” Life is a succession of
Au revoirs and
Adieus . The number of the latter grows with the passing years. Our hearts and memories are peopled with faces that once were dear to us. Some, like our parents, died. Others moved away out of our lives never to reappear again. If their names crop up in conversation we say, “I wonder what became of so-and-so.” They may say the same about us too. Life is a series of little deaths until our own death which for us will be the last great
Adieu .
We are, as never before, a pilgrim people, on the move. We need faithful friends who travel with us. In today’s gospel, Jesus alerts his disciples to his imminent departure, his ascension into heaven. He doesn’t say
Adieu but
Au revoir . “I am going away, but I shall return.” We never really say goodbye to God, for God always goes with us.
Notice how immigrants who leave their families, friends, language and cultures and settle, often penniless and in a hostile environment, on the other side of the globe, begin by building houses of worship. Such was the case with the Irish in America or Australia. Such is the case today with immigrant Muslims building mosques all over Europe. God is what they cling on to.
God keeps his promise to be with us always. He will always keep his side of the bargain. It is up to us to keep ours. And when we come to the end of our pilgrimage here and have to make our last goodbye, it will be literally
Adieu, “going to God.”
Listening and responding
Obedientia, the Latin for obeying, literally means to listen hard, to hold one’s ear to something. The first rule of the road that we all learned was “Stop! Look! Listen!” Before you cross the railway tracks, stop and listen. There may be a train coming.
“I am leaving you with a gift — peace of mind and heart.” What a beautiful promise, what a special gift. Peace is not the absence of war. It is the presence of something real and tangible. It is something I can experience, and it results from having my relationships the way they ought to be. I will deal in greater detail with this later.
We are all familiar with invitation cards that have RSVP on them. The person is looking for a response from us. Every word that Jesus speaks is calling for a response. A rule of thumb is to learn to listen, and then listen to learn.
My response must be practical; it must entail doing something. Believing something up in my head is nothing more than mental assent. Knowing that Jesus is God is not faith. Satan knows that. Faith is not up in the head; it is in the heart, and it eventually makes its way down into my feet. It is only then that I will be prepared to step out, and act on the direction given me by Jesus. The message of the gospel is simple, definite, and direct. There is not one “maybe” or one “might” in all the promises of Jesus.
The power of relationship
John’s Gospel has a higher theology than the three synoptic gospels. But the remarkable fact is not its strong theological slant but how early in the Church’s history such a Trinitarian perspective emerged. By the time of St. John the idea of God linked the Father, Jesus and the Paraclete, the guarantor of the peace that Jesus has given.
Already we have hints that God is a community of relationships, that there is so much knowledge and love in God that the knowledge and love transform into distinct personages. This truth is revealed to enlighten our minds, not to provide theologians with raw material for speculations (nothing wrong with that), to dazzle us with the brightness of God’s glory, the power of God’s knowledge and the passion of God’s love. The use of the word “spirit,” a translation of the Hebrew
Shekinah hints at a maternal aspect in God as the word is feminine and was used in Hebrew folk religion as the name of Yahweh’s consort. St. John hardly thought of this, yet the gender of the noun might well be part of the meaning.
Readings: 22 May 2022 – 6th Sunday of Easter, Year C
KEY MESSAGE:
The Holy Spirit will teach you everything.
The takeaway from the first reading:
This letter is a powerful letter for the people of the present church too.
“It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols …”
People from other Christian denominations say that Catholics do idol worship. In the times of the early church, there was no idol for our Lord Jesus. Every idol was the idol of the false gods. Hence this statement was referring to the idols of the false gods.
If the Apostle Peter had written the letter now, he would have worded “idols” as -> “every idol not accepted by our Catholic church”.
Our Divine Lord Jesus instructed St. Faustina to “paint His Divine Mercy picture”, so that whoever worships Him through the picture obtains the salvation from his sins and will also be able to pray for the salvation of the world.
While carrying the cross, our Lord Jesus instituted “Worship of His picture”, by presenting His Holy face in the towel provided by Veronica. When we read the “POEM OF MAN-GOD”, we understand that the first person to worship the picture of our Lord Jesus was our dear Mamma Mary. Mamma Mary was followed by all His loved ones inclusive of the Apostle Peter.
Surely as Mamma Mary and the Apostles did, we can also adore our loving Lord Jesus through His Holy pictures or ‘idols’.
When we treasure the relics of saints also there are many commentaries – In the Autobiography of Saint Thérèse, we read how Saint Thérèse treasured the last drop of tear of her Superior in her handkerchief. The mattress of Little Thérèse of the Child Jesus also cured sicknesses. Why are they so powerful? It is because they are treasures in the eyes of God our Almighty Father, as they were used by children who lived for Him.
How do we encourage little children in a relationship with our Jesus? We introduce the picture of “the Infant Jesus” so that they feel He is also a child just like them. Our Holy Bible says that people brought their handkerchiefs to be touched by the Apostle Peter so that just by touching them the sick people were cured. Aren’t those handkerchiefs treasured as relics? All the catechisms of the Catholic Church have their roots in the Holy Bible. We are blessed to follow the teachings of the Catholic church.
The takeaway from the second reading:
When we see little children playing in the presence of their Father, we find them totally happy, laughing and enjoying themselves.
We will be like those little children playing with our Lord Jesus Christ in Heaven, in the presence of our Almighty Father.
We learn from the Gospels that while on earth, our Lord Jesus Christ not only prayed, but He also happily spent time with His loved ones. Similarly, Mamma Mary will be our Mother there too. O what a prosperous life is waiting for us in Heaven!!
Let us not fully focus on the worries of our current life but prepare ourselves for our future life in Heaven!!
God has made the chapter of “Revelation” to be recorded for solving all our queries about our life after earth. We are not going to understand this chapter until it is fully revealed to us on the last day. But the revelation chapter is going to be our life ever after!!
The takeaway from the Gospel reading:
Our Lord Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading “the Holy Spirit will teach you everything”.
Our Lord Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and He did mighty works of God wherever He went. We do not require the help of politicians or rich persons or influential persons when we have the Holy Spirit living within us. When we walk according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are more than conquerors in everything our hand undertakes. The more we are filled with the Spirit of God, the more powerful we become.
How to receive the infilling of the Holy Spirit?
1. Believe in Jesus Christ our Lord.
2. Remove from our life every block that will hinder the Holy Spirit from resting on us.
3. Pray to receive the Holy Spirit.
Belief in Jesus Christ our Lord:
The foremost requirement is our belief in Jesus Christ our Lord. When the Apostle Peter visited the house of Cornelius, the gentiles believed and accepted our Lord Jesus Christ as their saviour and then they received the Holy Spirit of God.
Remove from our life every block that will hinder the Holy Spirit from resting on us:
When our Lord baby Jesus Christ was baptized, the prophet Simeon came in at the right time and thanked God for making him see the saviour of the world. The Bible introduces the prophet Simeon as the Holy Spirit rested on Him. The Holy Bible further adds “The Holy Spirit prompted Him to go to the temple” when Mamma Mary and Saint Joseph had brought Baby Jesus for presentation to God. Because the Holy Spirit rested on Him, Simeon was continuously guided by the Holy Spirit. Since the Spirit of God knows the plan of God for our life, He guides us accordingly. Now what was the reason for “the Holy Spirit resting on Simeon”? The Bible mentions that he was “righteous and devout”, which means that he did not have anything hindering the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Not all of us can be righteous and devout just like Simeon. We can be like the Apostle Peter in his initial days.
When our Lord Jesus Christ questioned the Apostle Peter “Whom do you say I am?” the Apostle Peter revealed, “You are the Messiah, Son of Almighty God”. Then our Lord immediately responds, “Flesh and blood have not revealed it to you. My Almighty Father as revealed it to you”. Then when our Lord Jesus goes on talking about His terrible passion and death, Peter advised our Lord Jesus to get away from the plan of His passion. Then our Lord Jesus replies “Go behind me Satan. For your thoughts are not according to God’s but according to Satan’s”.
Now we can understand that the Apostle Peter also had the same problem as us. He was a chosen rock of Almighty God but He kind of tends to switch between the paths of God and Satan.
What is the reason?
The reason is very clear. The Apostle Peter accepted our Lord Jesus Christ as His Saviour, but He wanted to walk with Him on a painless path. We should not choose the path of our Lord Jesus when it is simple and then deviate when it is difficult. Being always truthful may be painful, but it is a trustful path. It will never abandon us. We should investigate from our end, what the hindrances in our life are, that we should avoid so that the Holy Spirit can rest in us.
We can stop and think about the areas are we can do better in Holiness.
Some example thoughts.
1. Are we committed to our work?
2. Are we committed to our family?
3. Are we thinking bad of anyone?
4. Are we showing bitterness to anyone?
and so on.. Let us not feel discouraged when we have “YES” for all the queries.
Our Lord Jesus said that “Doctor is only for those who are sick”. So, our doctor will work with us and in us. When we are inclined to do good, but we are not able to be good just like the Apostle Paul, the Holy Spirit will help us. A few weeks back in the second reading, we read the words of the Apostle Paul, “I want to do good, but I am not able to be good always. There is a constant battle that goes within me either to do good or bad”. We know the Apostle Paul was a mighty worker. Just like you and me, he too had this problem. He openly reveals it. He reveals the battle of being good or bad within him.
This looks like a contradiction, doesn’t it? The person who had a constant battle within him for being good or bad has been instrumental in spreading the Gospel of our Lord Jesus in many places.
But how?
Because he had a constant desire to work for our Lord Jesus. He had the yearning to be get filled with the Holy Spirit and spread the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ everywhere. He was committed to serving our Lord Jesus Christ and our Father, irrespective of his weakness.
So the place from where we begin our journey is not an issue. We may have been a sinner throughout life. It does not matter. We may not be thinking about being filled with the Holy Spirit till today. Or we may be living in sin like Mary Magdalene. Nothing matters now. All we need to do is to have a desire to walk with God so our Lord Jesus can work with us in shaping us.
The Apostles Peter and Paul were weak like us. But just the cloth they touched or the words they spoke were sufficient enough to cure the sick. So an ardent desire to do the will of God will help in our journey towards the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
Praying for infilling of the Holy Spirit:
Our Lord Jesus Christ has expressed “…How much more our Heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!!”
We should ask and receive the Holy Spirit. When we bend on our knees and worship Almighty God, we are positioning ourselves to receive the Holy Spirit.
We see it in the life of the Apostles too. None of the Apostles started their life as saints. But our Lord Jesus mended them in the path of Holiness. During the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus told clearly “All of you are clean, but…” So the life of the Apostles was already transformed or made clean by our Lord Jesus. He sacrificed His life for the salvation of the sins. After His resurrection, He visited them and ensured that they all believed in Him. He spoke personally to St. Thomas when he was not able to believe in Him.
Before ascending into Heaven, our Lord Jesus instructed them to wait and pray for the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
When the Apostles were praying, the Holy Spirit came and rested on the top of each one’s head as tongues of flame.
We see the transition of Apostles from sinners to saints. From a regular normal life to a very fruitful one after the infilling of the Holy Spirit.