5th. Sunday of Easter (C)
(Acts 14:21-27; Rev. 21:1-5; John 13:31-35)
The subject of our readings this week is summed up in the
following words you have just heard from the book of Revelation:
He who sat on the throne said,
"Behold, I make all things new.”
How is God making all things new? Beginning
with Jesus Himself.
At the Last Supper -- Judas having left the room -- Jesus,
knowing that a sequence of events had just been set in motion that would
quickly lead to His crucifixion, said to the Eleven:
Now the Son of Man is glorified,
and God is glorified in Him.
Jesus understood well enough what would await Him once the
Romans were provoked to put Him to death: the pain, the agony, of such an
experience would be hard to endure even for the Son of Man. And so He went on:
If God is glorified in him God
will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately.
That is, the Son of Man, having triumphed over the imminent
sufferings of His crucifixion, would be raised from the dead and given once
more His rightful place as divine Son at the right hand of His Father in glory;
and His human nature -- abidingly and uniquely His -- formerly befitting the
humble figure of Jesus of Nazareth, would be transfigured into a glorious
Temple for the heavenly Son of God made Man.
God's work of making all things new began in that way with
Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God.
The Son had shared with His Father and the Holy Spirit in
the original creation when God made all things in the Son by the Spirit; that
is why -- now that all things are being made new -- Jesus, raised in the
power of the Spirit, appeared to His Apostles and breathed His Spirit on them, locked
-- as they were -- in the Upper Room for fear of the Jews. His breathing upon them was precisely the sign
of a new creation being made; for just as God had breathed on the original
creation to give it life:
The LORD God formed man of the
dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living being (Gen 2:7)
so Jesus, appearing in the midst of His disciples and after
having shown them the wounds in His hands and His side, said to them (John
20:19-22):
Peace to you! As the Father has
sent Me, I also send you." And when
He had said this, He breathed on them, and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”
God is making all things new, and Jesus, the Risen Lord,
shares in His Father’s work by breathing His Holy Spirit upon the Apostles,
thereby making them into the nucleus of a new creation where sin is to be cast
out by the cleansing and empowering presence of God's Holy Spirit. A new creation indeed: Mother Church, the
work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
However, that work needs to develop and spread so as to be
able to embrace the whole of mankind, because, as we heard in the first reading:
God
has (now) opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
And so, in the book of Revelation we heard the seer
declare:
I heard a loud voice from heaven
saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with
them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their
God. Now I saw a new heaven and a new
earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was
no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy
city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband.
That is how the new creation appeared to the seer in the
book of Revelation, like a bride, beautifully dressed, prepared and preparing,
for the coming of her husband. The
husband for whom the beautiful bride is prepared and preparing is the Son of
Man Who will, one day, return in glory to usher in, on earth, God's ultimate Kingdom,
where sin and suffering will be totally destroyed, and Mother Church will be:
(presented to Him) in splendour,
without spot or wrinkle ... holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:27)
That beautiful bride is now preparing herself by gathering
together, nourishing and forming, all those called to Jesus by the Father; and
she does this by her teaching, her sacraments, and her communion. Thus God's work of making all things new proceeds
even now, in us, among us, and in our world of today, despite personal troubles
and public antagonism, secret discrimination, and open persecution. Her
sacraments have been instituted by Jesus; her teaching is guaranteed by the
Spirit; but her life and fellowship depend also on all of us, her children on
earth, faithfully walking in the power of the Spirit along the ways of Jesus
towards the Father.
Jesus helps us in this by giving us a new commandment, one
that is new not because it is novel, but because it is the summation of all
that He had previously taught us:
I give you a new commandment:
love one another.
However, notice carefully how we are to love one
another if you would learn why we are to love one another:
As I have loved you, so
you also should love one another.
Jesus commands us to love one another as He loved us, and He does this in order that His love, His divine love, might be present and supremely active in the world
and in His Church, today. It is not just
human love – a love which is very often nothing more than transient emotional
sentiment – but Jesus’ love, a
divinely enduring, selfless, and saving
love, that we are called to share with one another; and we are able to learn of
that love because Jesus Himself told His Father how He had loved us whilst He was among us when He said:
I have manifested Your name to
the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them
to Me, and they have kept Your word. While I was with them in the world, I kept
them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and the glory which You
gave Me I have given them (the Gift of the Holy Spirit).
(John 17:6-7, 12, 22)
Notice, there is no mention of sentimental affection. Because Jesus was truly and fully human He
did, indeed, have such love: for example, He wept at the death of Lazarus, and
He wept over the fate of Jerusalem. Nevertheless,
the truest love He showed us was not sentimental; His best and truest love was
shown by His revealing the Father to us; by giving His Church the words He Himself
had received from the Father; and ultimately by keeping His disciples in His
Father’s Name and protecting them from the evil one by His own dying for them on the
Cross, before rising and endowing them with the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is divine, holy, love; and that,
fundamentally, is the way we too should love one another. Earthly, emotional love is good, but it is
merely human, it is not good enough; because we are called to a higher and
divine way of living humanity needs to share a saving, salvation, love -- which
used to be called charity – and which alone befits God’s new creation.
Our democratic politicians – more and more of whom are
ardent supporters of earthly love in all its manifestations -- are extending
their remit to the whole of life, civic and religious, private and public, in
such a way as to take over what used to be recognized as the spiritual
realm. They are -- they like to assure
us – not intending or endeavouring to do away with religion, just to renew (!!)
it and make it rational and acceptable without overtones of sin and
responsibility. Politicians legislate
for a life they themselves like to lead: a life where their own legislation is
the supreme law, indeed the unique law ... where no superior authority is to be
taken into account, no other law to be acknowledged or obeyed.
We should, however, be well aware of who best loves us in Jesus’
way: it is Mother Church. Individuals --
apparently members of her flock -- can and always will -- either with mistaken
or with wrong intent – abuse, for their own selfish purposes, her work for the
coming of God’s Kingdom: that is an ever-present and
ever-more-to-be-faced-up-to-and-combatted manifestation of the sin that is in
all of us. But Mother Church, by the Spirit
of her ever present Lord and Saviour, never
does, never will, and never can, fail to reveal the Father and His plan of
salvation to us, through her Gospel proclamation of the Faith in the fullness
of its truth and integrity. She guides
us along the Way of Jesus, and warns us of dissembling evils within and around
us that threaten us, though she is often reviled and has to suffer for so doing. Above all, however, she alone bestows upon us the Bread of Life and the Gift of
God's most Holy Spirit of peace, hope, and love. She indeed it is who, most truly, loves us
best in Jesus; and that is why we call her Mother Church.
Loving one another in such a way -- neither disregarding
nor denying our human love, but rather, most beautifully sublimating it -- the
work of Jesus is able to continue effective among us, His New Creation, through
His enduring Eucharistic Communion with us, whereby He continually bestows upon
us the refreshing and renewing presence and power of His most Holy Spirit:
The Holy City, the new Jerusalem prepares
(herself) as a bride adorned for her husband.
Such preparation is not always easy, indeed, casting out
the devil is very hard work at times: that is why Paul and Barnabas, as we were
told in the first reading, went about strengthening the disciples and
encouraging them to remain true to the faith, with the words:
We must through many
tribulations enter the kingdom of God.
While not an easy task, however, it is always a glorious and
supremely fulfilling calling to share in this divine work. Let us, therefore, strive hard to walk in the
way of Jesus as children of Mother Church and let us look forward with ever
more joyful and confident hope for the glory that will be ours when God's
Kingdom is finally ushered in at the longed-for return of the Son of Man; for,
in that heavenly Kingdom, we will shine as true children of the Father, in the
Son, by the Spirit, as foretold by the prophet Isaiah:
You shall be a crown of glory in
the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. (62:3)
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