May 30^th 2021.  Feast of the Holy Trinity

GOSPEL Matthew 28:16-20

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

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

 (Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

GOSPEL Matthew 28:16-20

The eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.’

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

 SHORTER HOMILY . . .  The Christian message is not about what we are OBLIGED to do. Rather it is a message about the amazing potentiality we have been given, the things we CAN do if we accept God’s invitation.

After the period of Easter we enter Ordinary Time via the door of the Feast of the Trinity. The first reading speaks of the joy of the people that comes from the fact that they have experienced the power of God and heard his voice. This is how it is with all of us. Christians are enabled to speak about the Lord not because of something they have understood, but because of what they have experienced. In one way or another, each one of us has heard a word that has entered our hearts, illuminated us and consoled us, prompted us to be reconciled and to walk in the way of discipleship. God is not a philosophical speculation, but an experience. In the great commission of Jesus in today’s Gospel, there are three commands (make disciples, baptize them, teach them). Two of these commands involve initiation, in other words, personal experience. The Greek word “baptize” means full immersion, to be immersed in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit. This is not an intellectual adherence to God, but a complete immersion in God, following him as our Master. The disciples were not called to found a religion, a system of ethical principles or rituals. Rather, their task was to establish a deep and intimate bond between the believer and God. Perhaps in the Church we have done catechism in an academic way, when what is really needed is that children experience life immersed in the love of God. This is what it is to know the Trinity: to live everything in the light of the merciful pardon of God the Father, the salvation of Jesus Christ his Son and the consolation of the Holy Spirit. The Feast of the Trinity is not the feast of abstract theology but the feast of experience! We must not perpetuate an image of Christianity based on obligation. It is not that we must love, it is the case, rather, than we can love. It is not that we must do good and holy acts, it is the case that we can do good and holy acts. The emphasis must always be on the grace-filled invitation. We can live the very life of God. Our understanding of the Trinity derives from the fact that it is something that touches on our existence in a complete way.

LONGER HOMILY FOLLOWS

This is not a feast about a theologically abstract notion: it is a celebration of a relationship that brings happiness in the concrete here and now.

The feast of the Holy Trinity is not a feast about a theological abstraction but a celebration of our knowledge and experience of God. We do not deduce God - we encounter him. He has been revealed to us in a person; in everyday things we have the potential to come to an intimate knowledge of him. The first reading speaks of a God who has revealed himself to his chosen people. This God has manifested himself in signs and wonders, in battles with outstretched arm. These anthropomorphic descriptions of God demonstrate that he is a Lord who reveals himself to us in ways that we can understand. He is a God who is both up in heaven and operative down here on earth. There is no other God, and Moses exhorts the people to obey him by keeping his commandments. Interestingly, Moses does not say that the people are to honour God because his divine majesty merits the subservience of all people to him. Rather, by following his commandments they, and their children, will enter into a state of happiness. We care for our children more than we care for ourselves, so this point is very important. God asks for the obedience of the Israelites so that they and their children will live in happiness, will prosper in the land that the Lord has given them. They will be enabled to already taste the happiness of eternity here and now on earth. The God who lives in heaven can be experienced here on earth as the fount and principle of happiness.

Some of the disciples hesitate in bowing down before the Lord. This is how we are made. The measure of our unhappiness is the measure of how much we hold back from abandoning ourselves to God.

How do we live in this state of happiness on earth? The Gospel is from the last few lines of Matthew. Jesus’ appears to his disciples in Galilee upon the mountain where he himself had imparted to them many of his teachings. The disciples prostrate themselves before Jesus, but some of them hesitate. What a curious thing is this persistence of weakness within us. We always hold something back from the Lord. It is hard for us to abandon ourselves to him completely. This is our state of poverty; this is how we are made. We are in a process of continual negotiation with the Lord. There is always something within us that remains unenlightened. Our unfulfilled happiness is always proportional to the portion of our heart that we hold back from God, to that portion of our heart that has given in to hesitation.

The power of Jesus is a power that is not simply terrestrial. It is a power to make heaven present on earth right now by forming relationships between disciples and God

Jesus proclaims his power. It is not the power of this earth which is in the dominion of Satan. The power of Jesus is that which unites heaven and earth. During the temptations in the Gospel of Luke, Satan declares that all power on earth has been given to him. This is a power that does not unite itself to heaven and is directed solely to the things here below. The power of Christ is of a different sort altogether, the power to unite heaven and earth, the power to use the things of earth in the service of heaven – as we say in the Our Father: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. As the Gospel passage makes clear, the power of Jesus is directed towards making disciples of all peoples. In the world there are disciples and there are people. The people are “self-made men” whose lives are lived in a self-referential way. Disciples, by contrast, live in relationship with their master. In Matthew’s Gospel, above all, Jesus is presented as the master who teaches. The disciple is not simply someone who listens to his teacher and leaves the relationship at this level. The disciple has an intimate relation with his master. In everything, he absorbs and learns and grows as a person. It is a wonderful thing to be a disciple and to have beautiful, novel, things revealed in every instant.

The Christian is one immersed in Father, Son and Spirit. This immersion is the foundation of his mission. When we are in intimate union with God, then we find it easy to transmit this union to others, forging relationships between them and God

The Christian, in fact, has a very special connection with his master. The Greek root for “baptism” means “to be immersed”. We are fully immersed in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in baptism, the sacrament that is the real centre of our Christian existence. The faith we profess involves being completely immersed in God, and then our Lord comes and immerses himself in us in the sacrament of the Eucharist. This mutual immersion makes us become a single entity. Heaven becomes present here on earth through our relationship with God. All of us experience heaven when we encounter a person who is immersed in God and God in him. The true disciple is fused with his master, has his master always with him in his heart. Such a disciple has the capacity to teach and pass on that which the master has entrusted to him. We are capable of teaching something when it is something that we truly live ourselves. If we try to teach people to do something using purely theoretical considerations, then we will have limited success. When I speak about something I love, I become very good at teaching that thing. I know the subject intimately and am able to describe its inner structure.

May 23rd 2021, Pentecost Sunday

GOSPEL  John 15:26-27; 16:12-15

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

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

GOSPEL  John 15:26-27; 16:12-15

Jesus said to his disciples:

"When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,

the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father,

he will testify to me.

And you also testify,

because you have been with me from the beginning.

"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.

But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,

he will guide you to all truth.

He will not speak on his own,

but he will speak what he hears,

and will declare to you the things that are coming.

He will glorify me,

because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

Everything that the Father has is mine;

for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine

and declare it to you."

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

SHORTER HOMILY . . . The first reading for Pentecost describes the actual events of the coming of the Spirit on the apostles and Mary. The Gospel is from Chapter 15 of John’s Gospel and contains the promises made by Jesus regarding the Spirit. It is essential for the Church to remember that the Holy Spirit is a person, not a thing. The Spirit comes from the Father and bears witness to Christ. Thus, the Spirit introduces us into the life of joy and communion of God. It is actually challenging to describe the Holy Spirit because he does not speak of himself: he speaks to us of the Father and the Son. Like a spouse who cannot stop speaking of the one he loves, the Spirit fills us with the joy of the Father and the Son. Like the child who cries out “Daddy!” to his Father, so the Spirit makes us trusting and self-abandoning children of God in Jesus. If we have a decision to make, the Holy Spirit does not tell us directly what or what not to do; instead, he speaks to us of the Father, and, in this way, we are assisted in discernment. We get bogged down in the details of things, but when we cease looking at things as if they were absolutes in themselves and instead see them in the light of the Father, then we can discern how to proceed. Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirt will “lead us to all truth”. This is because he enables us to see things in the context of love, which, ultimately, gives sense and meaning to everything. We are asked to live our lives in relationship with the Father. When the Holy Spirit enters our lives, he does not change the things of our lives, but enables us to meet the Father in these things. He does not eliminate our problems, but teaches us to abandon ourselves in trust to the Father in these very problems. In addition, Jesus tells us, the Spirit will speak to us of the things that are to come. This is a very important element of this passage because humanity is very conditioned by the future. The anxieties we have about the future derive from a distorted perspective in which we try to rely on our own feeble strengths. We will remain anguished by the things that about to happen until we learn to leave them in the hands of God. The Father who created all things, the Son who is his perfect substance and who is pure gratitude, the Holy Spirit who is joy and love – this is the future that we have in front of us! This Pentecost, it is important for our hearts that we contemplate the nature of our God. We have a tendency to carry on as if we were alone and as if our response to things depended only on us. In the account of Pentecost from Acts, the disciples go out and speak to everyone in language they can understand - the language of love – and what they speak about is not themselves but the works of God. It is the merciful works of God that brings hope and consolation to humanity. The Holy Spirit gives to us this knowledge of the Father, illuminating our hearts with confidence in his providential love.

LONGER HOMILY FOLLOWS

The Holy Spirit is the one who is utterly oriented to the other, not to himself

On this Sunday of Pentecost we hear passages from St John’s Gospel which announce the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Advocate, the one who comes close to us and speaks to our hearts, the “Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father”. When he comes he will guide us to the fullness of truth, Jesus tells us, because he does not speak about himself. Rather he will relate what he himself has heard and will tell us of things to come in the future. This might sound a little strange. Surely he will guide us to the truth because he knows the truth, and not because he refuses to speak about himself? We tend to think of the truth as being a precise thing, a matter of content. But the truth is not simply a matter of content. The Holy Spirit is the one who does not speak about himself, but speaks what he has heard, what he has received from Jesus, and everything that is possessed by the Father is also possessed by Jesus. In other words, the Holy Spirit is love. Love does not talk about itself. It is not centred on one’s ego. Love speaks of the one who is loved. It speaks of God. The Holy Spirit speaks of the Father and of the son and of their relationship. It is hard to express this mystery because love is not something that can be put in a certain category. Rather it is communion. Love is much more than just a sentiment. It is not simply some sort of perfectionistic act. If someone approaches us and speaks to us with love, their words can sometimes be hard and challenging, yet we recognize that they are speaking for us, for our good.

It is frightening for us to lose control over everything. The Holy Spirit leads us down that path

The Holy Spirit says little about himself. He is not self-affirmative because he is love. This attitude can be a little bit scary for us. To be obedient to the Holy Spirit signifies to loosen one’s control over everything. The things that are ours only attain their meaning as a function of love. The things that Jesus has to relate to us of the Spirit are things that we can receive only gradually. For the moment, Jesus tells us, these things are too heavy for us to bear. We are incapable of living them and they would appear to us as a moralistic burden. It is only the Holy Spirit that can teach us to lose ourselves and no longer be at the centre of our own lives. We have a dark terror of no longer being at the centre of reality. In the first reading, the disciples attain the capacity to go out and lose themselves, speaking to and for others. This is an art that is not learned in one day, but the result of a long process of self-emptying.

We only mimic a truly Christian society if we do not build it on the Holy Spirit and the art of emptying oneself

Matrimony is a continuous adventure of progressive growth. Sometimes marriages that begin well go more and more wrong afterwards, often because the Holy Spirit has not been allowed to do his work. These are people who are as good and decent as anyone else, but they have sought the wrong kind of fuel for their marriage: they have tried to rely on their own strength. It is only when we lose ourselves that we make space for the love of God. Marriage is a process of ever greater emptying of oneself, a process of falling deeper and deeper in love. Such marriages are not just a theory or an ideal: they exist in the Church. They occur when two people recognize matrimony as a vocation, as a call that only the Lord can bring to completion. When we cease to be the centre of everything, then everything we do becomes a place where we lose ourselves and enter into the greatness of communion, the greatness of collaboration, of being together with others, of taking care of others. This is authentic family, authentic friendship, true society. A Christian society can only be constructed upon people who have been emptied of themselves. We can only mimic such a civil society if communion and the Holy Spirit are not placed at the centre.

Let us abandon ourselves to God and allow him to control our lives

This Pentecost let us have courage! To receive the Holy Spirit means to lose oneself and to place others at the centre of everything. Only God can do this. We are too fearful and lack the strength to bear this burden of completely losing our self-referential control over things. I wish everyone, and myself first of all, the grace to permit ourselves to lose this “battle” with God, to allow him to win within our souls.

The Ascension of Our Lord 2021, Sunday Gospel Reflection

 May 16^th 2021.  The Ascension of the Lord

GOSPEL: Mark 16:15-20

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

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

GOSPEL: Mark 16:15-20

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Go into the whole world
and proclaim the gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved;
whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These signs will accompany those who believe:
in my name they will drive out demons,
they will speak new languages.
They will pick up serpents with their hands,
and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.
They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them,
was taken up into heaven
and took his seat at the right hand of God.
But they went forth and preached everywhere,
while the Lord worked with them
and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.

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

SHORTER HOMILY . . . At the Ascension, Jesus gives his missionary commandment to the disciples, but his discourse can also be read as a description of the unique characteristics of the Christian way of life. The first thing Jesus says is to preach the Gospel to every creature. Every man and woman was created for the Gospel. As Chapter 8 of the Letter to the Romans states, creation awaits with longing the appearance of the children of God. Humanity was created for the Gospel, to be saved and loved by God. We have a natural compatibility with the Gospel. Jesus goes on to say, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned”. This highlights the seriousness of the Christian message, but it does not follow that the Gospel should be imposed on people to ensure their salvation! The Gospel must be received with freedom. The Church must propose, not impose. The Gospel message proposes the love of God for all humanity, and love by its nature CAN BE REFUSED. It is an incredible thing, but Christ asks our permission before entering our lives. The passage then tells us that those who believe are accompanied by five signs. These signs are not to assist us in our faith but become present as a result of our faith. Let us consider the five signs one by one. Firstly, the driving out of demons. Aside from exorcisms, the fathers of the desert in the fourth century realised that the most common driving out of demons involved the combat against evil thoughts. We see when a person believes in the Gospel because he begins to drive evil out of his heart as he resists the suggestions of the evil one. Secondly, the speaking of new languages. On an ordinary level, this refers to the capacity of the evangelizer to speak in a new way, to speak of new life rather than death. The Gospel, in fact, is naturally apprehended by each person as if it were their native language being spoken to their hearts. Thirdly, they will pick up serpents. Christians will not be a timid race. They will be able to handle difficult things and enter into the horrors of life, as many saints and others have done. Fourthly, they will not be harmed by deadly poison. This refers to the poisonous external circumstances which surround us. John Paul II spoke of a “culture of death”. This culture of death reappears in history but Christians survive in its midst without losing the faith. Fifthly, they will heal the sick. This refers to the capacity of the Gospel to heal interiorly as well as exteriorly. The final lines of the passage speak of the synergy between the Lord and his disciples. In all of these matters – the capacity to speak to the hearts of people, the capacity to bring healing, the capacity to survive in poisonous circumstances, the capacity to handle difficult matters – in all of these, Christ is working with us. We do not do these things ourselves but by the grace of Our Lord Jesus, who has ascended to heaven and given us his power.

LONGER HOMILY FOLLOWS

The Ascension has little to do with the triumph over gravity and everything to do with the culmination of Jesus’ journey back to his Father

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of the Ascension. The first reading narrates the actual event of the Ascension, but let us concentrate on the Gospel, which this year is from Mark. The sixth article of the Creed is that Jesus ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. But what does this mean? Is it concerned with the bodily victory over gravity and the transportation of Jesus to another place, a place that is not a place at all in the sense of our conception of space and time? What is sometimes forgotten is that this is the culmination of a pilgrim journey by Jesus to the Father. He came from the Father and now he returns to his origins. And this also is the goal of all human life: to return to the Father. The notion of Christian “ascent” is not concerned with people trying to achieve some sort of perfection with respect to personal integrity. Rather it is a movement towards God the Father. The Ascension teaches us to follow Jesus, in all the events of our lives, in his journey to the Father.

It is a journey to the right hand of the Father. And “right hand” symbolizes Lordship. The Ascension is all about Jesus becoming Lord

And it is not just a journey by Jesus to the Father, it is a journey to the right hand of the Father. The right hand is a symbol of action and power. As the psalms say, “the Lord’s right hand has triumphed, the Lord’s right hand has worked marvels”. To be seated at the right hand of the Father means to be the executor of his power, to truly be Lord. As the letter to the Philippians says, it is to receive the name which is higher than all names. What does it mean to say that Jesus is Lord? Does it mean that he is seated on a special throne that everyone can recognize is the highest position of all? Is it a seat like the seats of power in our human structures of bureaucracy? No, it is something different altogether.

What does it mean to say “Jesus is Lord”? Does it mean he sits on a special throne? No, it is all about Jesus exercising dominion

We are sent out into the whole world to announce the Gospel, and it is here that Jesus reveals himself to be Lord. “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” The Lord confirms the preaching of the disciples with the signs that accompany their preaching. He manifests himself as Lord in these signs. What exactly are the signs in question? The capacity to drive out demons refers to the ability to free people from the grip of the deceiver, from the devil who separates us from God. How many times throughout history people have been liberated from the grip of the deceiver. The ability to speak new languages refers to speak in a way that is new with respect to all other languages. It is the speaker that has been renewed by the new and eternal covenant, and he can now communicate that which is fresh, that which springs from God. Whoever has the love of God in their hearts is able to speak this new language. There are people who can speak eloquently with flawless logic and with an outstanding grip of the language, but often the content that they communicate is empty. And how often a child can talk in simple terms and touch your heart because they are able to speak with love. It is not about perfect articulation, but about having the capacity to communicate with love. We can listen easily to those who have love in what they say, who communicate effectively the maternal care of the Church. This is the new language spoken by authentic Christians.

The power of the Gospel liberates people from the power of Satan, it makes people recognize and reject the poisons inherent in our culture, and it brings peace and healing to those who are sick

We are told that the faithful will be able to take serpents in their hands. Some people try to live by escaping from reality, but serpents must be taken in hand. The serpent, the liar, who tries to sow confusion in our hearts, must be taken in hand and drawn out. In confession we name our sins and state clearly the ways that we have been deceived. This is what it means to take serpents in our hands. Their poison no longer has any effect on us because we consign them to God. “If they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them”: generally in our time we are very conscious about not exposing ourselves to any poisonous substances. This is all very good, but the real poison that the Christian is not affected by is the poison inherent in our culture. “Everything is pure for the one who is pure” says St Paul. When our hearts have been touched by the truth, we recognize deceit. Its falsity becomes very apparent to us. We must remain small and humble, clinging to the Lord, so that we can be preserved by him. And the final sign of the Lordship of Christ is that the sick will be healed when hands are laid upon them. The Holy Spirit is transmitted by the imposition of hands and people are healed, some of them physically, whilst it is the heart that is healed more often. The riches of the Church – the Holy Spirit – can be transmitted by this gesture of laying on of hands, placing into the hearts of people peace, acceptance, freedom and love.

May 9th 2021.  Sixth Sunday of Easter

GOSPEL   John 15:9-17

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

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

GOSPEL   John 15:9-17

Jesus said to his disciples:

"As the Father loves me, so I also love 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 joy may be in you

and your joy might be complete.

This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.

No one has greater love than this,

to lay down one's life for one's friends.

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

I no longer call you slaves,

because a slave does not know what his master is doing.

I have called you friends,

because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.

It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you

and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,

so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.

This I command you: love one another."

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . This Sunday we continue reading Chapter 15 of St John’s Gospel. This reveals to us the real source of Christian life and action and encourages us to remain connected to that source. In the first reading, we hear how St Peter goes into the house of Cornelius and declares that his healing powers do not come from him but from God. This prepares us for the Gospel reading and its fundamental instructions for the Christian life. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Remain in my love. . . Love one another as I have loved you”. Human love has its limits, the limits of human fragility. How then can the love of God be manifested in us? Our love is always going to be a love of response to God. We do not manage to love because we are capable, or because we apply ourselves so well. Rather, we love because he loved us first. The channel that enables this love to become real in our lives is to enter into a relationship with Christ. All the terms used in this Gospel are intimate ones. We are no longer servants of Jesus but friends, because we know what is in his heart. The fact is that we often fail in our efforts to love because we try to use our own strength and our own initiative. The Gospel is very clear: “You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you”. This “appointment” refers to being constituted or built up by Christ so that we have the same relationship to him as he has to the Father! Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you”. How has the Father loved Jesus? With the complete gift of himself. In this way he has shown himself to be Father. And Jesus has loved and constituted us in the same way! Jesus then instructs us to remain in Christ’s love. Every Christian is invited to rest in Christ’s heart, to be rooted, consoled and nurtured there. We look for consolation and nourishment in so many empty places! Let us discover ever more deeply the resting place that is the heart of Christ. Let us remain there consoled and having constant recourse to his mercy. One of the desert fathers said that his greatest motive for not sinning was the wish not to distance himself from the love of God. In other words, the priority is not to conform to norms or to “be good”, but to stay near the sweetness of the love of God. This is the true secret of Christian love.

The first reading reveals how the Lord’s plan of salvation is intended for all of humanity

The first reading for the sixth Sunday of Easter is from Chapter 10 of the Acts of the Apostles. Peter sees an uncircumcised family receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. He then baptizes them on the spot because he sees that he cannot remain fixed in his ideas regarding salvation while the Lord is already moving ahead. This was something surprising and serious that the Church had to work through. It was necessary to accept that the Lord was calling those who did not belong to the chosen people. In fact, this reading is relevant for each one of us. It tells us that we can enter fully into the inheritance that the Lord has prepared for humanity since eternity.

No matter how hard we try to observe laws, such observance never brings us to an authentic kind of life. It is only in relationships of love that we experience joy and fulfilment

Peter has to accept something that he was not prepared for. What exactly is it that he has to accept? The Gospel throws light on this question. The most bitter diatribe that ever came from the mouth of Jesus was directed at those who were obsessively preoccupied with the observance of norms. Jesus brings another type of life, another way of living in fullness. In fact, the effort to arrive at the fullness of life through the observance of laws never manages to reach its goal. Moralism is not just unpleasant, it is useless: it never leads anywhere. No one’s heart is ever changed by means of the observance of a norm. Where is authentic new life really concentrated? Wherever true love is to be found. “Just as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you”. Jesus is the joyful Son of the Father and he carries this happiness to us, treating us according to that same happiness. We are called to remain in this happiness - “Remain in my love”. Even though our bodies might be moved to thousands of different places, with all of our hearts and minds we are called to remain within the love of God for each one of us.

There is all the world of difference between doing something according to a code of behaviour and doing the same thing out of love. The Lord is calling us to act out of love, not obligation

“If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love . . .” Some people observe the Lord’s commandments without love.  The rich young man tells Jesus that he has observed all of the commandments since his youth, but he still does not experience the life that he yearns for. He has not changed. Nothing eternal has touched him inside. But when one remains within the love of God, he does not observe the commandments in order to be righteous, to feel ok with himself, to have a quiet conscience, to sleep easy at night. It is one thing to do something for you because it is an obligation, but an entirely different thing to do something because I want to be with you, because I want a genuine relationship with you. I do the things that you want because I want to be with you. There is all the world of difference between a life lived according to a code or a set of rules, and a life lived from the point of view of a valued relationship. Here we are not talking about living up to a certain model of behaviour but about giving one’s life for another. This is not something that can be understood rationally. It requires investing oneself completely in a relationship. Prayer according to this mode of relationship is not about completing some sort of devotional practice but about remaining with the Lord and uniting oneself with him. It is about having a serene and profound joy, not a vain human euphoria that vanishes quickly.

We did not choose the Lord, he chose us. He has elected us and given everything for us. He has opened up the riches of his life to us

The Lord Jesus wants to give us everything, and He cannot wait to meet someone who will open their hands to receive what He has to give. Through the events of our lives, we respond to this love, but not through acts that take their initiative from us. As the Gospel passage says: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you”. It is the Lord’s initiative. He chooses us and we should know that we have been elected by him, like a woman who realises that a man truly loves her and wants to be with her profoundly in every area of her life. In the same way the Lord wants to throw open all of his riches for us. We are his. He has chosen us, elected us. The Lord Jesus has made his choice and is on our side from the very beginning. We are his property, but not in the sense of being dominated by him. Rather, he is on our side and values us completely. We are never nothing, never forgotten. He is ready to do everything for us. He says to us, “YOU ARE MINE!” We are for him because he is for us. As we say every time at the Eucharist, his body is for us. It has been given for us. Let us welcome him and remain with him and life will be beautiful.