Homily
for the
6th Sunday
of Easter
May 22, 2022
John
14: 23-29
St.
Pius X, Scarsdale, N.Y.
“Jesus said to his disciples, ‘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’” (John 14: 23).
What do you really love? How do you show your love?
If you love chocolate, you might
overindulge with a select box of sweet goodies.
If you love your dog, you might shower it with affection, take it on
long walks, and talk silly nonsense to it.
(Or cats might draw your affection, and some cats have been known to
return it.)
If you love your spouse, you remember
birthdays and anniversaries, you help with the household chores, you share the
responsibilities of parenthood, and you use the 3 words that Pope Francis says
are vital to a good relationship:
please, thank you, and I’m sorry.
What about Jesus? Addressing his apostles at the Last Supper, he calls them his friends and not his servants (John 15:13-15), tells them that he lays down his life for his friends, and repeatedly commands them to love one another. All of that is addressed not only to the 12 apostles but also to us.
Jesus tells us that if we love him
we’ll keep his word. In the verse
immediately before today’s reading, St. Jude the Apostle asked him, “Master,
what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world”
(14:22) In that context, we can say that
we reveal Jesus to the world by keeping his word.
How do we go about keeping his word and
thus making Jesus known? The 1st and
most important thing is to have a loving, personal relationship with
Jesus. Your love for your spouse and
your children rests on such a loving, personal relationship. When Jesus tells the 12 that he and his
Father will “make our dwelling with him,” he’s speaking of an intimate
relationship. Jesus becomes part of our
lives, the central focus of our thoughts, desires, and actions. That seems to be a little abstract or
challenging—true. After all, we don’t
see, touch, and speak with him the way we do our spouse or kids. But we can talk to Jesus as warmly and
personally as to anyone else—because he’s real, and he loves us and wants our
company and our friendship. We can talk
to him in church, in our home, on a walk, while driving.
We also listen to Jesus. We listen in prayer, to hear what he speaks
to us in our hearts, to discover how he guides us day by day. Fundamental to that listening is actually
reading his words in the sacred Scriptures.
Jesus speaks to us in the Gospels, in the letters of St. Paul and the
rest of the New Testament, and in the Old Testament too. “Whoever loves me will keep my word.” So we have to take up his word, read his
word, ponder his word, seek to understand his word, and then to put his word
into practice.
The word of God has an internal power that
no other written or spoken words have.
It comes from the Holy Spirit.
You might be inspired by Shakespeare or Dante or Martin Luther
King. Their words are powerful. But the Scriptures affect our souls. They convey the grace of Jesus to us. As St. Peter told Jesus after Jesus revealed
the mystery of the Holy Eucharist (John ch. 6), “You have the words of eternal
life” (6:68).
The words of the Scriptures prompt us
to keep Jesus’ word, to keep his commandment, to love one another. Sometimes it’s hard to love one another: when we’ve had an argument with someone, when
someone treats us unjustly, or even when we’re just feeling grouchy (as we all
do sometimes). Jesus’ word received
attentively has the power to put us at peace:
“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.” (14:27) God makes his
dwelling with us (14:23).
No comments:
Post a Comment