May 10^th 2015. Sixth Sunday of Easter.

Gospel:   John 15:19-17

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

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Don Fabio's homily follows the Gospel for Sunday

Gospel:   John 15:19-17

Jesus said to his disciples:

‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you
and your joy be complete.
This is my commandment:
love one another, as I have loved you.
A man can have no greater love
than to lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends,
if you do what I command you.
I shall not call you servants any more,
because a servant does not know
his master’s business; I call you friends,
because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. You did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you
to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last;
and then the Father will give you anything you ask him in my name.
What I command you is to love one another.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary  . . . . The Gospel tells us that friendship with Jesus is the high-point of our relationship with him. Friendship is such a simple and human thing! But then Jesus says that we will be his friends only if we keep his commandments. What kind of friend places conditions on his friendship? How are we to make sense of this apparent absurdity? Don Fabio says that our friendship with Jesus only becomes real and concrete if we respond to Jesus in the same way that he acts towards us. And this makes sense. Imagine that we are in a room surrounded by fifty people who love us. If we love none of them in return, then we are really alone in that room. Friendship is only felt when it is a two-way thing. In the same way, there is no doubt that Jesus loves each one of us totally. But if we do not respond to his love in kind, then the life-giving relationship between him and us does not really get kick-started at all. It is essential that we do things for Jesus, that we stoke the relationship of friendship between us. Mother Teresa spent half of her time alone in prayer and the rest of her time helping the poor. It was from the time and space that she gave to God that she derived the energy and power to do marvellous things. This is the story of all the saints and it will also be our story! We must do things for Jesus, behave like friends towards him, devote time to him, have a secret and intimate relationship exclusively with him. Then we will remain in his love and experience his friendship in the fullest sense.

We are inclined to think that God saves in certain fixed ways, that the faith can only be lived according to certain formulae. But it is God that saves us, not the particular pathway that we hold dear!

Sunday’s liturgy presents us with a change in mentality of the early church that is documented in the Acts of the Apostles. The first believers in Jesus were Jewish. This didn’t happen by chance. Over many centuries the Lord prepared the Jewish people for the coming of the Messiah, through figures like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the Judges, and the prophets. Through this remarkable process of preparation, the Jewish people were made ready for the coming of God’s blessed Son. This fact led the early disciples of Jesus to think that only those who came from the rich Jewish tradition were capable of welcoming the Messiah. The surprising thing was that God intended his Spirit to be given also to the pagans. We are inclined to look at everything through our own limited conceptual schemes. We find it difficult to accept that God can bring his plan to fruition along pathways that we do not consider possible. St Paul struggled greatly against the mentality that it was still necessary to follow the observances of the Law in order to be pleasing to God. It took a monumental effort to convince people that God could work with people in different ways than the particular scheme that they held dear. All of us fall into this trap! Once we have a positive experience of the faith, we tend to make this particular expression of faith an absolute that we expect others to conform to. We become attached to certain modes of salvation, not recognizing that God has many others. It is God that saves us, not the pathway that we hold dear! We must not become fossilized in our ideas about salvation.

What God wants from us is not the fulfillment of certain precepts, but a relationship of genuine friendship

The Gospel tells us to remain in the love of the Father and the Son: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you”. This is not a fixed scheme or protocol, but a relation. In the very same total sense that the Father has loved Jesus, so Jesus loves us. Jesus remains in the Father’s love by observing his commandments. This is not a mechanical observation of laws and regulations, but living in a relationship with the Father. Here we enter into the most surprising aspect of this Gospel passage. Friendship is presented as the high-point of the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. What a strange thing! Friendship is such a simple and natural aspect of being human. It is possible to cultivate friendships with anyone.

What does Jesus mean when he says, “If you want to be my friend, do what I say”? Is he placing a condition on friendship?

But then Jesus says: “You are my friends if you keep my commandments”. What kind of relationship is this? A conditional friendship? Jesus is the one who gives himself to us gratuitously! At first sight this seems absurd, but from a different perspective we can enter into the beautiful sentiment expressed by this passage. Sometimes when a friendship is forming, both parties move at different speeds. One person opens up a little and then the other responds. But the real friendship begins for me on the day that I try to do something for the other person, actually putting myself out on their behalf for no ulterior motive. Then I begin to behave truly like a friend. The fact is that we do not really appreciate the love of Christ for us just from the fact that he loves us, full-stop. It is only when we respond to his love, that his love ceases to be a mere concept for us. It is when we try to mirror his love that it becomes a more concrete thing for us. Then we begin to appreciate his friendship and experience the depths of his love for us. Say that I am in the middle of fifty people who love me. If I love none of them in return, then I am alone. Similarly, if Christ loves me totally but I do not respond to his love, then the new life of Easter does not really get going in me at all. Christ makes demands on me, as all true friendships do. It is essential that I do things only for him, things that are directly uniquely at my relationship with him. Just think of the saints who achieved incredible things for others, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She dedicated herself to people who were in great poverty and close to death, but half of her time was dedicated to being completely alone with the Lord. The rule of her congregation prescribes that the sisters spend half of their time helping the needy and half of their time in prayer. She understood the need to donate time and space to God. From this intimacy with God springs the power and energy that is the hallmark of so many saints. The key to endeavor that does not become weary, that continues to be beautiful and full of life, is to do these secret things with God, as the Gospel of Matthew says. Friends are intimate with each other and share secrets. In the same way, we too must have that secret connection exclusively with Christ.