Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter
(Acts 22:30.23:6-11; John 17:20-26)
Indwelling names
how the Father inhabits the Son and how the Son inhabits his disciples. Indwelling enables Jesus to inculcate
the Father’s love in his disciples. By indwelling
we can inculcate, at least to a degree, the same love in the world. We can think of indwelling as forming
us. Like a bowl is formed from clay to
hold water, we are formed to hold God’s love.
In today’s gospel Jesus prays that we may
be so formed. It is possible to reject
God’s grace because it will require sacrifices.
We can think of these rejecters as those who no longer correspond with loved
ones when the loved one become hard of hearing or deficient in memory.
God’s indwelling will make us more
sensitive to people when their needs grow.
Formed as receptacles of God’s love, we find treasure in helping the
needy. It may give us the peace of
remembering past blessings or the satisfaction of treading the moral high
ground. In any case, when we help the
needy, we are united with the Father and the Son.
