24 /04, 2016. Fifth Sunday of Easter

1st Reading: Acts 14:21-27

Paul and Barnabas complete their mission and report back to the Antioch community

After Paul and Barnabas had proclaimed the good news to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, then on to Iconium and Antioch. There they strengthened the souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue in the faith, saying, “It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God.” And after they had appointed elders for them in each church, with prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the Lord in whom they had come to believe.

Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. When they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia. From there they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had completed. When they arrived, they called the church together and related all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith for the Gentiles.

 

2nd Reading: Revelation 21:1-5

The vision of a new world, portrayed as the new, heavenly Jerusalem

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Gospel: John 13:31-35

Jesus gives the new commandment, to love one another

When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

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Audio version  for the fifth Sunday of Easter: https://soundcloud.com/user-679942596/easter5c16gospel

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The Love We Need

Some people say they don’t read newspapers anymore because there’s too much bad news in them. They have a point. A while back e,g, a national newspaper ran stories about footballers knowingly or unknowingly taking banned performance-enhancing substances; a pedestrian killed by a hit-run driver; the terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels and other capitals; the wretched conditions of refugees gathered in makeshift camps in Turkey, Greece and elsewhere, fleeing from the chaos of Syria’s civil war. News like that may well turn people off reading their newspapers.

Thank God such bad news is not all the news there is! On its front page a while back the same paper ran a story about ‘Curly’ Veith, a rich man and a Christian, aged 94. As business prospered, Curly says that he ‘used to lie awake at night thinking of the hungry and homeless children all over the world. So I decided to give all my money away to help them!’ About $23 million so far! He has set up Mission Enterprise Limited to channel funds to worthy causes everywhere – American Indians in Colorado, street kids in Bangkok, water wells in East Africa, land for a school in Queensland. More than that, with the courage of his convictions about doing good, he has been going to other rich businessmen and businesswomen and challenging them to give generously to people and projects in need. Clearly this old gentleman has taken strongly to heart today’s message of Jesus to his friends and followers the night before he died for them: ‘I give you a new commandment: love one another; just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples.’

At an isolated roadhouse in North West Queensland, two children aged eight and six tell a visiting traveller about a play they have put on at their local church. They have teamed up with a friend to dramatize how Jesus wants us to love one another. The first child gets a phone call from Jesus to say he will be coming along that day and will want some help. The two children are to keep a lookout for him. Well, Jesus turns up in the guise of the third child who has hurt her knee and is looking for some first aid. One of the first two reaches out to help and asks the second who is talking to Jesus on the phone to also help. She says she is too busy talking to Jesus, and is still waiting for him to arrive. But in the end she too goes to help the injured one. At the end of the day she receives another phone call from Jesus. He thanks her for helping him. She says she doesn’t understand. She waited and waited for him, she points out, but he didn’t turn up. Then Jesus explains that he did come after all, in the form of the child that needed help.

That’s the wonderful thing about the kind of love that Jesus wants of us. It’s a love modelled on his kind of love. He showed his love for people in so many wonderful ways – in kindness, compassion, generosity, patience, perseverance, endurance, faithfulness and forgiveness. There was no limit to what his love would give or where it would go. The love which imitates the love of Jesus for others is therefore a practical, down-to-earth kind of love. It’s a kindness and compassion kind of love, a self-forgetting kind of love. It’s a self-sacrificing kind of love even to the point, as shown by so many brave soldiers in two World Wars, of giving up their own lives so that others might be free – free to be good, kind, unselfish, generous and loving persons too.

It’s our love for others that keeps the great love of Jesus for people alive in our world today. An American journalist, watching Mother Teresa caring for a man with gangrene, remarked to her: ‘I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.’ Mother Teresa replied: ‘Neither would I do it for that amount, but I do it for love of God.’ True love is the opposite of selfishness. Selfishness confines us, keeps us shut in. It builds barriers, even walls, between us and others. What frees us is caring about others and caring for others, being friends, being sisters and brothers, being good neighbours. In short, it’s love alone that frees us from the cage of selfishness. A doctor, who has shared some of the deepest moments in the lives of many patients, says that people facing death don’t think about the degrees they’ve earned, the positions they’ve held, or how much wealth they’ve amassed. What really matters at the end is whom you have loved and who has loved you.

Love always demands the best from us, and brings out the best in us. Being loved gives us a surprising energy and courage. Love makes us fruitful, productive, strong and constant in doing good. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, famous for her work on the stages of dying, has written: ‘Love is the flame that warms our soul, energises our spirit and supplies passion to our lives. It’s our connection to God and to one another.’ To love is to heal, both those who receive it and those who give it. To refuse to love is to die. To decide to love is to live. But love is a choice, not a feeling, and when we choose to be loving, caring, healing, helping, and forgiving persons, we experience well-being, contentment and happiness.
Freedom from selfishness and freedom to love and care for others, surely that’s what life is all about! There’s really no other way. So Jesus insists, strongly insists: ‘Love one another, as I have loved you.’ (Brian Gleeson)

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Ministers of encouragement

Most of us can remember people who helped us at a time when we needed encouragement in our lives. They probably encouraged us more by the quality of their presence than by anything they said. The way they were with us helped us to find the energy to keep going. Their presence communicated support and appreciation. They may have helped us to see a value in what we were doing that we were slow to see for ourselves. When it comes to our relationship with the Lord, and the living out of that relationship, we all need encouragement too. St. Paul was fond of calling on the members of his churches to encourage one another in their faith. To the people in Thessalonica, for example, he writes: ‘Encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.’ Clearly saw his own role with his churches as that of an encourager. Earlier in that same letter he says: ‘We dealt with each of you as a father with his children, urging and encouraging you, and pleading that you live a life worthy of God.’

In today’s first reading we find Paul and Barnabas engaged in exactly that same ministry of encouragement. Luke says that Paul and Barnabas ‘put fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith.’ I often think that the primary role of a priest in a faith community is to be an helper, to encourage people in their faith, in their relationship with the Lord. The priest is called to be present to the faith community in a way that puts fresh heart into people and encourages them to persevere in the faith. He can only do this, of course, if he himself perseveres in the faith and shows himself to be faithful. Most priests would happily admit also, that they get great encouragement from the parish community where they work. The struggles of laypeople to persevere in the faith, even in the face of personal difficulty, is a real morale-booster for priests. The presence of a Eucharistic community, of people who want to gather to celebrate the Eucharist, is a great help. The willingness of people to offer themselves for some service or ministry in the parish, no matter how small it might seem, gives us encouragement. Paul’s call to his people in Thessalonica to encourage one another and to build up each other reminds us that we are all called to be ministers of encouragement to each other. We all have a role to play in helping each other in living our baptismal faith.

That call to encourage one another is one expression of the Lord’s call in the gospel to love one another as he has loved us. Jesus was very much engaged in the work of giving encouragement to people. One example of that is his first meeting with Peter. Peter felt unworthy and said, ‘Depart from me for I am a sinful man’ and the answer he got was, ‘Do not be afraid, from now on it is people you will catch.’ That was at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Then at the end, after the last supper, he said to Peter, ‘I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail, and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers and sisters.’ One of the ways the Lord encouraged others was by praying for them. One of the ways we encourage one another is by praying for each other. We pray for each other that our faith may not fail, and that, when we do fail, we would always turn back, as Peter did, so that our failing and turning back would help us to strengthen others, to encourage others.

One of the important ways we encourage each other is by being people who have a hopeful vision. The man who wrote the Book of Revelation was such a hopeful person. Writing to churches that were struggling, he tried to encourage them by giving them a hopeful vision of what God was working to bring about. One aspect of that vision is in this morning’s second reading. John describes there a city which is penetrated with God’s presence, where the inhabitants live as God’s people, and from which death, mourning and sadness have been banished because God reigns. That city is an image of the church at its best. This is, indeed, visionary writing.

The church needs people of vision as much in the 21st century as it did in the 1st century. We need people to remind us of God’s vision for our lives and for our world, and to keep us focused on that, lest we forget it. It seems to me that this is also an important aspect of the calling of the priest in a parish. Yet, we all need to hold onto that vision of the kingdom and to find ways of sharing it with each other. In this way we encourage each other and build each other up. [Martin Hogan]

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Is the Love-Commandment really possible?

We may wonder whether this Last-Supper commandment of Jesus to love one another is really all that new. After all, he could point to an Old Testament requirement to love my neighbor as myself (Lev 19:18). The clearest new element is that we are to love just as Jesus loved us, and that was totally, to the last drop of his blood, poured out on the hill of Calvary. Another sense in which the Christian commandment to love is new is in the breadth of the definition of who is my neighbor, whom I should love. In the parable of the Good Samaritan it appears that now everyone is my neighbor – even those of different nationality or religion. So now, love for our neighbor is very demanding, and goes beyond all racism or prejudice.

The really hard question is whether such love is possible. While giving a hesitant yes to this as a possibility, it is clear that most of us, most of the time clearly fail to live this new commandment fully. We can only love in this way by cooperating very generously with the grace of God. But the power to do is is made possible by the New Covenant set up by Christ, and because we have the living presence of the risen Jesus always with us, to help us love in his way.

Of course there are difficult situations where it is very demanding to love our neighbor as ourselves or even to love our neighbor in any way at all. In the face of Islamic extremism or any other form of terrorism, or in time of war, we are strongly tempted to dehumanise the enemy and regard them as no longer part of the human family, and so unworthy of any kind of love or respect. But Jesus’ commandment to love, and his own example of forgiving those who crucified him, constantly call us to reconsider things and seek for reconciliation rather than total victory.

In the end, it is only when working with the grace of God that we can love our neighbor as ourselves in this new way. It is only by living every day with Jesus that we can love our neighbor as ourselves in this new way. Can we live our day in such a way that we are in communion with Jesus in some way all day? It is only by living our day with Jesus that we can love as he loved. It is only by living close to Jesus that we can love as Jesus asked us. If not, we will be relying only on our human efforts alone, and we will love with some other type of love but not the unconditional love Jesus asked for when he said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you.”

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Don’t lose your identity

Jesus is saying goodbye to his disciples. Very soon, he won’t be with them. Jesus speaks to them with special tenderness: «Little children, I shall be with you only a little longer». The community is small and fragile. It’s just been born. The disciples are like little children. What will become of them if they are left without the Teacher?

He gives them a gift: «I give you a new commandment: love one another, just as I have loved you». If they love each other mutually with the love Jesus has loved them with, they won’t stop feeling him alive in their midst. The love they have received from Jesus will keep spreading among them; that’s why Jesus adds: «It is by your love for one another that everyone will recognize you as my disciples». What will allow a community that calls itself Christian to be seen as really being from Jesus, won’t be the confession of a doctrine, or the observance of some rituals, or the following of a discipline, but the love lived out with Jesus’ spirit. In that love is their identity.

We live in a society where there has been imposed the «culture of exchange». Persons exchange objects, services and loans. Frequently they exchange feelings, bodies and even friendship. Eric Fromm ended up saying that «love is a marginal phenomenon in today’s society». A people capable of loving is an exception. Probably this is an excessively pessimistic analysis, but it’s certain that in order to live out Christian love today, it’s necessary to resist the atmosphere that fills today’s society. It’s not possible to live out a love that is inspired by Jesus without distancing ourselves from the style of relationships and self-interested exchanges that frequently predominate among us.

If the Church is getting watered-down in the midst of today’s society, it’s not just because of the profound crisis of religious institutions. In the case of Christianity, it’s also because often it’s not easy to see our communities as disciples of Jesus who distinguish themselves by their capacity of loving as he loved. We lack the Christian distinction. We Christians have talked a lot about love but we haven’t always made it clear or we haven’t dared to give it its true content that starts with the spirit and the concrete attitudes of Jesus. We still haven’t learned that he lived love as an active way of living and as a creator who brought to it an attitude of service and of struggle against everything that dehumanizes and that allows humans to suffer. [José Antonio Pagola]

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