Sixth Sunday of Easter: Reflection

“You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.”

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus speaks during the Last Supper of his ascension and the Advocate coming to the disciples. By saying “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father,” he seems to address those among the disciples who don’t want him to go. They want to hold on to the life they have and not begin new life with the Holy Spirit. Aware of this, Jesus says, “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.”

God, help me understand that there have been times in my life when I was not attentive to the Holy Spirit and was unable to rejoice when I saw myself or others moving in a good direction; that is, “going to the Father.” Maybe this was because I wanted to hold on to the good that I did have and was afraid that God would fail to take care of me or others on the new path. Help me also understand, God, to be as sensitive as Jesus so that I don’t find myself an obstacle of the Holy Spirit. Give me peace; let me not be troubled.

I think of my restlessness and how the leaves of a cottonwood blow every direction and yet stay connected to the tree. Let me trust that every day, God shows me the path to return to him if I see him at work throughout the day.

Today, the sixth Sunday of Easter, let me celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and make way for the Advocate. In the second reading from the Book of Revelation, John says of the New Jerusalem: “The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb.” In that city, God is everything—the destination, the cause itself of joy, even the light to see by. Why would I not take joy in finding the source of that light?

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Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter: Reflection

“I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.”

Jesus is who he says he is. He says in these few words that he has revealed everything he has heard from the Father, laying this as the foundation for a relationship with him. If Jesus has heard from the living God, and he says that this is the basis of friendship, then it is worth the time to consider how I relate not only to God the Father but also those around me, my friends formed by Jesus’ command to love one another.

God, help me understand that in your relationship with your Son, you shared everything with him that he needed to establish a pattern for others to follow; namely, the commandment to love one another.

For me to spend even five minutes in quiet prayer is to enter dense woods with heavy undergrowth. So many brambles and so much debris to maneuver around, things that trip up my steps, it’s hard to find God in that. I don’t want any consolation, any sixth sense, any goosebumps to affirm that God is near. I want to remember him today and ask him to accompany me all the way through. Be with me, God, and let me care nothing for worldly success.

Today the words of Jesus, as well as the words of the first reading, embrace everybody. I almost resist that command to love, to embrace. Yet, Jesus also says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” This is a two-way street: Jesus calls us friends because he manifested truth, mercy itself, and we manifest that in turn by loving one another and doing what he commands. “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Tethered to this command, there is no wrong step in loving others.

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Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter: Reflection

Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”

Similar to the Our Father, when Jesus says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us,” Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you.” In both of these, Jesus models what a loving relationship should be. Just as the Father loves him and he loves us, that love is the pattern for loving each other.

A reporter answers the who, what, when, where, why, and how of a story. Jesus answers who (the Father and the Son), what (“remaining in my love”), why (“so that your joy might be complete”), and how (“if you keep my commandments”). This is pretty straightforward, and there is no mistaking how to remain in love—stated three times—with the Father and the Son. Thank you, God, for the clarity of the words of your Son.

Your love, God, is an all-embracing love. It is not false in any way; it is not as society can construe all-embracing love, which brings all to a center that cannot hold when it permits all. To love you, Father, calls for obedience to your holy will, to do what is pleasing to you, and to bring others to a center that can hold because that center is truth in the person of Christ.

The Gospel acclamation for today’s reading is “My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; I know them, and they follow me.” To remain in Jesus’ love today, let me remember to hear his voice while I’m busy or resting. Whether today brings a greater balance of trials than joy, I have no idea. But let me remember why Jesus asks that I keep his commandments: so that my joy might be complete.

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Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter: Reflection

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.”

In the words of Jesus, “You are already pruned because of the word I spoke to you,” I had to pause to think about what that means in my life. Maybe it’s similar to “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” More than that, though, I think it’s more like “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away so that he can giveth more!” In the Gospel reading from a few days ago, Jesus says, “Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words has something to judge him: the word that I spoke, it will condemn him on the last day.”

God, help me understand the work of your Son in the world. Jesus’ words are pruning words; they take away what doesn’t grow in me so that what does grow in me can grow like crazy. Aware of this same overgrowth, the disciples went out into the world to share the Gospel while remaining in God. Like them, I will also go out into the world today. How far will I go to share the Gospel?

A gentle spring rain comes down today, watering the lawn and the garden, watering the weeds. What does it mean for me to be a disciple? What does it mean to trust that what God takes away from me is pure grace? “Ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you,” Jesus says in today’s reading. Jesus, take from me freely today; in that, let me give glory to your Father.

Today I want to soak up all the goodness of Easter and delight in it, remain on the vine and know that pruning doesn’t hurt as much as withering away in selfish, willful aims. Let me be ready today to share the joy that is in the Gospel.

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Tuesday of Fifth Week of Easter: Reflection

“And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe. I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me, but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me.”

Jesus shows the depth of his love for the disciples by taking great care in affirming their faith in what they are about to witness and in modeling for them obedience to the Father. There is also in this Gospel passage Jesus’ reassurance “I am going away and I will come back to you”—words that not only console but are true. Jesus not only speaks of peace; he is living peace.

God, thank you for this beautiful Easter season, when the resurrection of your Son and the words he spoke before his Passion glorify you and draw us to you! It is not enough, Lord, to understand how the disciples received Jesus’ words and followed the life he modeled; it is for me to grasp that he says to me, “I am going away and I will come back,” and it is I who must know that Jesus loves the Father and does as he commanded him.

So often I know that I can rest in God’s presence throughout the day, that God takes delight in me, as a good father does his child. Yet, I find it hard to let go of the drive toward efficiency and accomplishing as much as possible with the time given. Can I make the effort today to break away from that a couple of times and quiet down to reconnect with God? “I am going away and I will come back to you.”

This day will bring its moments when I am troubled or afraid or anxious. Let me remember to ask Jesus to accompany me today not as a sign or symbol of peace but through him, with him, and in him, the peace of the risen Christ in his love for the Father.

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Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter

“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”

Jesus says these words as he teaches his disciples about the coming of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. If I recognize the Holy Spirit as the love between the Father and the Son, it is easier to see that that same love can come to dwell in me. This is true, as Jesus says, for “whoever has my commandments and observes them.” In this short Gospel reading of 155 words, Jesus uses the word love seven times in the sense of both loving the Father and the Son and being loved by the Father and the Son.

God, help me understand that you call me to love you and love the Father by doing your will; in turn, you send the Advocate to teach and remind me of all that your Son said and did. Realizing this in myself is a way, as the Psalm says, to give glory not to myself but to your name.

The workday has a way of occupying a huge amount of mental space. God, I know you want me to give my anxieties and cares to you as a little child does who comes to his mother and father when hurt or troubled. Thank you for the gift of family and the many opportunities I will have today to do your will and share the joy of having the Advocate teaching me.

Today I will remember the particular love that Jesus reveals for each of those who observe his commandments. Jesus invites me into that same love through his life, death, and resurrection, and also in his Father sending the Advocate in his Son’s name. Let me recall that in keeping the word of Jesus, I make a place for him to dwell within me so that I can then go out and give glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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Fifth Sunday of Easter: Reflections

“My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Jesus spoke these words at the Last Supper between Judas’s betrayal at the table and Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s denial. From that position, he gives his disciples the new commandment, the way they will be recognized as his disciples: “love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” Through Judas’s betrayal and the Passion that will follow, Jesus’ love of the Father and obedience to his will is accomplished. Through it, Jesus gives glory to the Father and God will glorify Jesus as the Son of Man.

God, please help me understand the depth and breadth of how your Son is glorified. Just as he glorified you through the Passion and resurrection, revealing to others his divine identity, so you ask me to reveal my identity as a disciple by loving one another. Jesus’ obedience to his Father is a model for me also to love and follow him and avoid the alternative paths of betrayal and denial. In Jesus’ fulfillment of the will of the Father, as John describes in the second reading from the Book of Revelation, “there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.” The old order has passed away, and God has made all things new.

Father in heaven, Abba, be with me today as I receive your grace. Let me understand and appreciate the gifts you give me and return them to you to glorify you in my words and actions.

Today let me give glory to God by loving one another. That is one small way to do as Jesus did by giving glory to the Father through his obedience.

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Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle

“You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.”

In friendship, when one friend withholds essential truth from the other, it enslaves the other to a false image. How can the friends really know and love each other if the basis of the relationship is founded on falsehood? Jesus calls his disciples friends because he has told them everything he heard from his Father. In Jesus’ sharing this, the disciples are free in Jesus’ authentic gift of self to them.

God, help me understand that Jesus also calls me into friendship with him—a more trusting friendship than I could possibly imagine. But time after time, I fail to take him up on the invitation; for that reason, like the disciples, it is not I who choose him but he who chooses me. Time after time after time, Jesus chooses me, like Francis Thompson’s character in the poem “The Hound of Heaven”: I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways / Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears / I hid from Him, and under running laughter. / Up vistaed hopes I sped.”

Many plans for today pull me in so many directions I feel like I will tear apart. Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading, “go and bear fruit that will remain.” I ask for God’s grace to know which ways to go today that will keep me in friendship with his Son.

Today I want to slow down and ask myself where I am going and why in such a hurry. Will I look at another and see this as an opportunity to hear the Father and remain in his love through seeing Christ in others?

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Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?”

In this Gospel reading, Jesus affirms the faith of his disciples in God only to teach them later in the passage that he is the “way and the truth and the life” in response to Thomas’s question, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Here, Thomas questions Jesus in a way that hints at his doubts about Jesus resurrection, after Jesus appeared to the disciples behind locked doors and Thomas upon touching Jesus’ wounds from the crucifixion, proclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”

God, thank you for sending you Son, who has a place prepared for us. Help me understand the challenges I face daily as a believing Catholic who wants to increase my faith and bring my unbelief to “the way and the truth and the life.”

God hears me, without a multiplication of words, without droning on. Let me trust that and know the peace of trusting him.

Today let me remember to be merciful as God is merciful, taking me to himself. Let me remember to forgive others as he forgives me. Let me remember to ask for the grace to know that where I am going is where Jesus also may be.

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Prayer Service for National Day of Prayer

Audio Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter: Reflection

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

Jesus says these words after washing the disciples’ feet, so it is unmistakable that he speaks to them about discipleship and sharing the Gospel. He says, “From now on I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM.” In the Gospel readings from the past several days, John reveals in Jesus’ words his oneness with the Father, so here he connects the disciples’ mission through him with God the Father.

God, help me understand the depth of meaning behind your “I AM.” In the first reading, Paul stands up in the synagogue and recounts salvation history from the time that God chose Israel as a people set apart, a holy nation, to the coming of Our Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus’ I AM is a truth he presents to the disciples not to lord it over them, but so that they might believe he is who he says he is.

I want to be able to accept these words of Jesus and trust that he is the Son of God. On my own, part of me holds onto unbelief. Jesus himself asks of me, “From now on I am telling you . . . so that when it happens you may believe that I AM.” With the trust of a little child, God, give me the grace to believe, and help my unbelief.

Today let me be ready when I witness God at work in the world around me. Will I be able to marvel at even the most mundane experiences or realizations and be willing to say to others, “That is the great I AM at work in the world; that is the gift of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God!”

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