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 . . .

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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.