5th Sunday of Easter C
Acts 14:21-27. Psalm 144:8-13. Rv.1. Apocalypse 21:1-5. John 13:31-35.
We have to experience many hardships before we can enter into the kingdom.
The Lord is kind and full of compassion.
God lives among men. He makes his home with them. His name is God-with-them.
By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples.
The Body of Jesus
| When he had gone, Jesus said: Now has the Son of man been glorified, and in him God has been glorified. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will in turn glorify him in himself, and will glorify him very soon. 33 Little children, I shall be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and, as I told the Jews, where I am going, you cannot come. 34 I give you a new commandment: love one another; you must love one another just as I have loved you. 35 It is by your love for one another, that everyone will recognise you as my disciples. The Church is not to learn from the world. There, ‘rulers lord it over people’. They love to be called lords, your Excellency etc. They go around in finery and live in palaces. “With you it must not be so’. In the Church leaders are to follow on Jesus and be his image among the flock. Jesus is no longer visibly with us. ‘I shall not be with you much longer’. He has just washed the disciples’ feet out of his love for them. In a moment he will give himself to them and throughout the ages as food under the appearance of bread and wine. The Last Supper reveals the intimacy with Jesus and with one another experienced by the Founding Members of the Church. In the Last Supper we see before our eyes the Church community that Jesus founded. Throughout the ages till ‘Jesus comes again in glory’ wherever his members gather in intimate fellowship to celebrate the Eucharist and their love for one another, there we see the Church. There we are to experience Jesus. This is the ‘source and summit’ of our faith. Jesus is among us ‘as one who serves’. It is this humble love for one another in mutual service and fellowship which is to be the sign of the Church. It is not our basilicas, Bishops and Cardinals in their finery, the world-wide organization with its political power, and vast numbers of statistical members. If we boast of these we make a travesty of the Church Jesus founded. The Church will only have true power when it can say with Zachaeus “I give half my property to the poor” and with Peter, “Silver and gold I do not have”. For then it will also be able to say, “In the name of Jesus, get up and walk”. Jesus was rich but became poor for our sakes. The leaders of the Church, among not above the sheep, are to be visibly humble shepherds who “put fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith”. Jesus inaugurates the New Covenant by which in him we become the children of God. He is Abba, Dad, to us. God’s generous love which is unmerited and of which we are unworthy is manifested in Jesus. It is a love that knows no bounds even to the joyful death of Jesus on the Cross to win us life. This love of the Father for us is the life blood of the community and should be the very air we breathe. Living in this love makes us ‘his community’. If the Christian community delights in this love the world will meet Christ and see the light. Do you manifest this love to the members of your community? Is your family a community of love in Jesus? Can the world see Jesus in your parish community? Father, may I always be a living and loving member in the community of Jesus. | |||
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