Friday, May 8, 2015

Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Acts 15:22-31; John 15:12-17)

In his book The Four Loves C.S. Lewis sees friendship as grossly undervalued in modern times.  He writes that the ancients considered friendship as “the happiest and most fully human of all loves.”  In contrast, he comments that moderns have trouble seeing friendship as a love at all.  Friendship, according to Lewis, is sharing personally and fully over common interests.  By no means does he equate friendship with regular companionship, however.  Rather he indicates that one would be blessed to have only two or three friendships in her entire life.  So it is remarkable that in today’s gospel Jesus calls all his disciples’ friends.

But, of course, it is not the case that the twelve or so men gathered around Jesus the night before he died exhaust the list of his friends.  Really all serious followers of Jesus become his friends because they share the same desire to know God.  In order to reach this goal Jesus has revealed that they have to keep his commandment of love.

We should see the purpose of our lives as having God for our friend.  The grace of the Incarnation is that He took on human flesh to overcome the impasse that our bodily nature posed from knowing Him.  He has become one like us.  We can know him as an ever-caring, ever-helpful friend.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

(Acts 15:7-21; John 15:9-11)

In his encyclical Ut Unum Sint Saint John Paul II expressed his openness to a new form of papal leadership. As a significant outreach to Orthodox and Protestant Christianity, the pope asked for suggestions to change his office to accommodate non-Catholic Christians without compromising truth. His offer is reminiscent of the concession that the first followers of Christ are making in the readings from the Acts of the Apostles today.

In the beginning Judaism was as much a part of Christianity as Mother's Day is part of being American. God chose the Jews to be His own people, and, as Jesus says in the Gospel of John, "Salvation is from the Jews." But this does not mean that one necessarily has to become a Jew to be saved. Peter proclaims what Jesus' disciples know instinctively: salvation does not come from Jewish dietetic observance but from the grace of the Jew, Jesus Christ.

The great ecumenical question for us is not how much change in the papacy we are willing to accept but how much personal renewal we are willing to make. Some Catholics may harbor prejudices against non-Catholics which surely have to go. Most of us need to emulate the virtues of other kinds of Christians - like the serious study of the word of God. Finally, all of us must pray more determinedly with Christian brothers and sisters for unity.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

(Acts 15:1-6; John 15:1-8)

One of the characteristics of the Gospel According to John is Jesus’ speaking of himself as “I am.”  In today’s passage he says, “I am the true vine.”  He also speaks of himself as “I am the Good Shepherd,” “I am the Bread of Life,” “I am the light of the world,” etc.  It is not plausible that Jesus made such declarations about himself.  Rather the evangelist John uses the images with which Jesus spoke of God’s Kingdom – vineyards, shepherds and lost sheep, bread feeding thousands – to explain the meaning of Jesus for the world.

By having Jesus call himself the “true vine,” the evangelist intends to say that he gives life.  As a branch would wither and die if it does not stay connected to the vine, so would those who cut themselves off from the Church, where Jesus lives today, soon fail to live productive lives.  “Productive lives” are not those which make a lot of money or even have a lot of children.  They are lives which work for the good of all and end in true happiness. 

We may have difficulty appreciating all the images the evangelist John uses to describe the meaning of Jesus.  Most of us get our fruit from stores, not from trees.  Perhaps living in an age that values autonomy highly, we may think that we are being underestimated when compared to sheep in need of a shepherd.  Some of this difficulty may be arrogance.  If Jesus is as we proclaim him to be in the Creed, then we need him more than air.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

(Acts 14:19-28; John 14:27-31a)

Perhaps the peace proclaimed by English Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich in 1938 is representative of what the gospel calls “the kind of peace the world gives.”  He had just bartered with Hitler part of the Czechoslovakia for what he hoped would be a stabilized Europe.  Hitler was not appeased, however, and within a year Europe was engaged in history’s deadliest war.  Surely Jesus’ peace is different.

The peace which Jesus presents in this final supper with his disciples is fully realized only after his resurrection from the dead. On that evening he appears to disciples with "peace" on his lips. Then he breathes on them the Holy Spirit who fills them with eternal life.

If this same peace is given to us with the Spirit’s conferral in the sacraments, why do we not always feel it? We need not doubt its presence but should understand that our capacity to embrace it has been compromised by mental, psychological and even physical factors. We worry about what others think; we cannot remember what our spouse gave us for Christmas, let alone God’s many gifts; and our suffering blinds us to the blessings that surround us.  By meditating over God’s goodness a few minutes every day, we can allow Jesus’ peace to fill our hearts.

Monday, May 5, 2015

Monday of the Fifth Sunday of Easter

(Acts 14:5-18; John 14:21-26)

G. K. Chesterton is attributed to have said, “He who does not believe in God will believe in anything.”  He means that the unbeliever may make a god out of a whimsical desire or out of cold cash.  In today’s reading from Acts the Greeks take Paul and Barnabas to be gods.  The two apostles of Jesus have just healed a cripple through the intercession of Jesus.

Paul and Barnabas want no part of the deification.  They try, with only partial success, to explain that there is but one God, the Creator and Sustainer of the whole universe.  They, in contrast, have a mortal nature although they are being saved from everlasting death through Jesus Christ.  Their curing the invalid -- they would tell their hearers – is but a sign of Jesus’ saving grace. 

On the one hand, we must take care not to unwittingly deify that which is mortal or even inert.  We must never adulate an entertainer or barter our soul for pleasure.  On the other hand, we want to find our salvation in Jesus.  As he rose from the dead, he will raise us up.  Because he is the God of the universe, we can count on him.