Homily for Tuesday, 5th Week of Easter

Homily for Tuesday
5th Week of Easter

May 20, 2025
John 14: 27-31
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” (John 14:27).

Fr. Gus Baek, of happy memory, used to tell us it took courage to live in the provincial house.  He didn’t explain.  But we all knew it took courage for him to lead our mission office (as it does for Mike Conway now), and it took courage for Gus to suffer cancer and its treatment and the inadequacy of that treatment and to face his approaching passage to the Father.  He handled all that with an equanimity like what Jesus shows us today:  “I’m going away, and I’ll come back to you….  I’m going to the Father. . . .  I love the Father and do just as the Father has commanded me” (14:28,31).

Jesus was completely at peace with what the Father was asking of him.  He offered that peace to the apostles:  “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (14:27).  He addresses that gift also to us.  It takes courage to come to St. Joseph’s and live a new phase of our discipleship—to do as the Father is commanding at this point in our lives.  Jesus urges us not to let our hearts be troubled or afraid.  He went away, as he said to the apostles, and he came back—risen, victorious, and offering again his peace.  His 1st word to them after his resurrection (and their desertion of him) was “Peace be with you” (20:19).

Paul & Barnabas at Lystra
(Bartholomeus Breenbergh)

If Jesus is with us still bestowing peace to our hearts, then we need not be troubled by our frailty, our diminishing memories and other faculties, our dependence on others, our own approaching passage to the Father.  We can find a level of peace as we look back at the work we have accomplished by God’s grace and what God has done thru us (cf. Acts 14:26-27) even if it hasn’t been as dramatic as the work of Paul and Barnabas.

Jesus gives us not only his peace but also himself.  He came back to the apostles; he remains with all his friends.  He remains with us.