8th May - ‘When the Spirit of Truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth’, Reflection on the readings for Wednesday, Sixth Week of Easter (John 16:12-15)

Wednesday, Sixth Week of Easter

When we have important news to share with someone, we sometimes have to choose our words carefully. It mightn’t always be best to share all of the news at the one time. Sometimes we sense that the person may only be able to take in some of the important news we have to share. Rather than say everything, we say some of what we need to say and late on, at a different time, say a little more. This seems to be what is happening between Jesus and his disciples in today’s gospel reading. Jesus says to them, ‘I have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now’. Jesus felt that the disciples were not yet ready for what he calls in our gospel reading ‘the complete truth’. What he communicated to them there and then was deeply true, but it wasn’t the complete truth, because the disciples were not yet ready to hear the complete truth. Instead, Jesus promises to send his disciples the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who, over time, would lead them to the complete truth by revealing more about Jesus to them than they were currently ready for. That is one of the roles of the Holy Spirit in all of our lives. The Holy Spirit is the great teacher when it comes to Jesus. On one occasion, Jesus said of himself, ‘I am the truth’, and one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to lead us to the complete truth, which is not a body of knowledge, but a person, the person of Jesus. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, we are all learners and the Spirit is our teacher. We can each turn to the Holy Spirit in prayer, calling on the Spirit to lead us ever more closely to Jesus, asking him to help us to grow ever more fully in our loving relationship with him.

6th May - ‘And you too will be witnesses’, Reflection on the readings for Monday, Sixth Week of Easter (John 15:26 - 16:4)

Monday, Sixth Week of Easter

The gospel reading today refers to people who will kill Jesus’ disciples while thinking that they are doing a holy duty for God. It is hard to imagine someone thinking they were doing God’s holy duty by killing others. Yet, we know from our own times that there are such people around who think like that. Even Saint Paul, while still a zealous Pharisee, approved the killing of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, because he believed that Stephen’s death by stoning was what God would have wanted. He said himself that he persecuted the church of God, and he did so thinking he was doing God’s will. It was Paul’s meeting with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus that made him realize that in persecuting the members of the church he was persecuting the Son of God. His meeting with the risen Lord led him to preach the gospel of the risen Lord. This is what we find Paul doing in the city of Philippi in today’s first reading. This gospel was a gospel of life, a gospel of love. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, ‘bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them… Do not repay anyone evil for evil… overcome evil with good’. In the gospel reading, Jesus promises to send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to his disciples and he declares that the Holy Spirit will empower his disciples to be his witnesses. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the God’s love, the Spirit of Jesus’ love. The Holy Spirit empowers us to love others with the love of God and in that way to witness to Jesus. Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and his life, death and resurrection was the fullest possible revelation of the life-giving love of God for all humanity. The Holy Spirit at work in our lives helps us to love others with the love of Jesus, the love of God, a love that brings life to others. That is the Christian understanding of doing a holy duty for God.

5th May - ‘I call you friends’, Reflection on the readings for Sixth Sunday of Easter (John 15:9-17)

Sixth Sunday of Easter

One of the greatest gifts in life is friendship. The Book of Sirach in the Old Testament declares, ‘A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter: whoever has found one has found a treasure. There is nothing so precious as a faithful friend’. The image of a faithful friend as a sturdy shelter, as a treasure, rings true to all our experience. For many married people, their best friend is their spouse. All of us, hopefully, whether married or single, have a faithful friend, someone who loves us as we are, who listens to us when we need a listening ear, who stands by us in good times and in dark times. Each of us is probably such a friend to someone. It is difficult to get through life without the love of a friend.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus says to his disciples, ‘I call you friends’. The disciples represent us all. What Jesus says to them, he says to each one of us. We probably have many images of Jesus. The image of Jesus in today’s gospel reading is that of a friend. He offers himself to us as a faithful friend. He says that he reveals his friendship for us in two ways. Friends trust one another enough to share what is deepest in their hearts. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus says he has done just this with us all, ‘I have made know to you, everything I have learnt from my Father’. What was deepest in Jesus’ heart was his relationship with God, his Father, and he has shared that relationship with us. In the words of the second reading, he has revealed God to be Love. He hasn’t simply spoken to us about God’s love but has given expression to God’s love in his whole way of life and, especially, in his death. Like a trusting friend, Jesus has opened up his heart, God’s heart, to us. There is a second way in which Jesus says he reveals his friendship for us. A faithful friend will go the extra mile for us. They will make sacrifices for us, not because of some sense of duty, but just out of the love they have for us. They will stand by us to the end because it is what they want to do in their heart of hearts. Jesus has made the ultimate sacrifice for us. In the gospel reading he says, ‘A man can have no great love than to lay down his life for his friends’. Jesus revealed the depth of his friendship for us by laying down his life for us. His great mission in life was to reveal God’s love for us, and he was faithful to that mission even though he knew that it would cost him his life. In laying down his life for us, he showed the extent and depth of his friendship for us. This Sunday, we are invited to hear those words of Jesus as addressed to each of us personally, ‘I call you friends’. His friendship is his incredible gift to us, and it is a gift he will never take back. He is the ultimate and supreme ‘faithful friend’.

Jesus also says in the gospel reading that he has befriended us in this complete way, ‘so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete’. The gift of true friendship is a blessing which always brings us joy. A faithful friend is one of the great joys of life. Jesus himself knew the joy of God his Father’s friendship. By befriending us, he wants us to share in his joy. By loving us as God loves him, he wants us to know a joy that nothing in this world can give us, a joy that is complete. We can seek happiness in all kinds of places, but true joy, a joy that is deeply rooted and lasting, is found when we open ourselves up to the gift of the Lord’s faithful friendship. We will only fully experience the joy Jesus speaks about in eternal life when we will be fully opened up to his love, but here and now Jesus wants us to begin to experience this joy by receiving the gift of his friendship. We can sometimes struggle to receive this gift of the Lord’s faithful love, just as at the Last Supper Peter struggled to allow Jesus to wash his feet. ‘Never’, he said, ‘you shall never wash my feet’. Yet, the Lord keeps offering us this gift in the hope we will receive it or, in the words of the gospel reading, that we will remain in his love, his friendship.

The Lord’s friendship is faithful, it remains, but in today’s gospel reading he calls on us to remain in his friendship, to remain in his love. The primary way we remain in his loving friendship, Jesus says, is by allowing his faithful love to flow through us and to touch the lives of others. We are to love one another as he has loved us, to befriend one another as he has befriended us. Jesus poured out on us the love he received from God his Father, and he calls on us to pour out on others the love we receive from him. When this happens, then we will know something of Jesus’ own joy, the joy of eternal live.

4th May - ‘A servant is not greater than his master’, Reflection on the readings for Saturday, Fifth Week of Easter (John 15:18-21)

Saturday, Fifth Week of Easter

We are given a sense in today’s first reading of Paul’s mission being directed by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the risen Lord. They travelled in response to the promptings of the Spirit. At the end of the reading, the Spirit communicates with Paul through the medium of a vision. One night, while Paul was in Troas on the north west coast of modern Turkey, he had a vision. Someone from the Roman province of Macedonia (northern Greece today), appeared to him and appealed to him in these words, ‘Come across to Macedonia and help us’. Paul promptly responded to this invitation and it resulted in the gospel being preached on the continent of Europe for the first time. The Spirit continues to guide the church today. We are aware that we are in a time of great transition in the church. It can be an unsettling time, but it is also an exciting time. We can be sure that the Spirit will direct us in these days. The Spirit is always at work in the life of the church, and in our own personal lives, bringing new life out of death, opening up new opportunities when past opportunities seem to have run their course. In the gospel reading, Jesus alerts us to the likelihood that his disciples, the church, will experience the same hostility and persecution as he did. As he says, ‘A servant is not greater than his master’. We are all trying to be the Lord’s servants, and Jesus says plainly that if they persecuted him they will persecute his servants. Yet, just as the Spirit was with Jesus in his moments of struggle, so the same Spirit is with his church, all of us, in our moments of struggle, and we can trust the Spirit to bring us to where the Lord wants to take us. What the Lord needs from us is a willingness to be brought where the Spirit is leading us. This is something we all need to pray for at this time.

3rd May - ‘To have seem me is to have seen the Father’, Reflection on the readings for Feast of Saints Philip and James (John 14:6-14)

3rd May, Feast of Saints Philip and James

There are several people by the name ‘James’ in the gospels. The James of today’s feast is the one referred to as the brother or cousin of Jesus. In today’s first reading, Saint Paul lists James as one of those to whom the risen Lord appeared, ‘then he appeared to James, and then to all the Apostles’. James would become a leading member of the church in Jerusalem. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul refers to him as one of the pillars of the church in Jerusalem. Paul and James did not see eye to eye on issue of the grounds for admitting pagans to the church, with James insisting that they needed to be circumcised and Paul adamant that their faith in Christ was sufficient grounds. Paul was on the right side of Christian history there. James was a man of deep faith, but he had much to learn. According to the opening chapter of John’s gospel, Philip was from the town of Bethsaida, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee and it was he who found Nathanael and called him to Jesus, with the invitation ‘Come and see’. In today’s gospel reading, Philip says to Jesus, ‘Let us see the Father and then we shall be satisfied’. Philip had already come to Jesus and seen him. Yet, he did not yet realize that in seeing Jesus he was seeing the Father, which is why Jesus says to him, ‘To have seen me is to have seen the Father’. Philip had responded to the call of Jesus and had gone on to bring Nathanael to Jesus, but he too had much to learn; he was still on a journey of discovery with regard to Jesus. Even though he saw Jesus with the eyes of faith, there were greater things he had yet to see, namely, that the Father was living in Jesus and working through Jesus and to see Jesus was to see the Father. Like James and Philip, we are all on a journey of discovery with regard to Jesus. There are always ‘greater things’ in regard to Jesus we have yet to see. Through the Holy Spirit the Lord works in our lives to lead us to the complete truth. All he asks is that we be open and responsive to his guiding

2nd May - ‘Remain in my love’, Reflection on the readings for Thursday, Fifth Week of Easter (John 15:9-11)

Thursday, Fifth Week of Easter

Young people who prepare for the Sacrament of Confirmation are told about the fruit of the Holy Spirit, as mentioned by Saint Paul in his letter to the Galatians. The second fruit that Saint Paul lists after love is joy. Paul clearly sees a very close link between love and joy. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God’s love. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. In linking the fruit of love and joy so closely together, Paul seems to be saying that those who love others with the love of the Holy Spirit, the love of God, will be truly joyful. This is also the message of Jesus in today’s gospel reading. He says there that he wants his own joy to be in us, so that our joy may be complete. How will his joy be in us? According to Jesus, it is by remaining in his love for us, opening ourselves to the gift of his love, and then loving one another as he has loved us, which is his primary commandment to us. The path to authentic joy, a sharing in the Lord’s own joy, is the path of love, receiving the Lord’s love for us and then loving one another as he has loved us. People search for happiness in all sorts of ways, very often without finding it. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus shows us the path to authentic joy, the joy that is in his own heart as risen Lord, and it is the path of love received and love given.

1st May - ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’, Reflection on the readings for Fifth Week of Easter (John 15:1-8)

Wednesday, Fifth Week of Easter

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks frequently about the importance of the disciples bearing fruit. From what Jesus goes on to say, it is clear that the fruit Jesus is referring to is the fruit of love, a life of love that reflects Jesus’ love for his disciples, for all of us, and for humanity. Jesus makes clear in our gospel reading that such a life of love flows from our communion with him, just as fruit on the branches of a vine are due to the branches being in communion with the vine. If the branches are separated from the vine, the fruit will wither. In the same way, Jesus says, ‘cut off from me you can do nothing’. Jesus stresses the importance of a certain way of life, a life of love, but he suggests that even more important is our communion with him and his with us. His primary call is not to bear the fruit of love but to make our home in him, as he makes his home in us. In becoming flesh, Jesus made himself at home with us; he looks to us to make ourselves at home with him. As he has cultivated his communion with us, we are to cultivate our communion with him. It is this intimate relationship with the Lord that empowers our lives to bear the fruit of love. It is only in and through our communion with the Lord that we can come to love one another as he has loved us, and it is such a way of life that gives glory to God the Father.

9th May - ‘Your sorrow will turn to joy’, Reflection on the readings for Thursday, Sixth Week of Easter (John 16:16-20)

Thursday, Sixth Week of Easter

According to our first reading, when Paul first arrived in the city of Corinth, he had the good fortune to meet up with a married couple. Priscilla and Aquila, who were Jewish Christians, as he was, and also tentmakers, as he was. At the time, Corinth was a bustling city and it must have seemed a very daunting task to Paul to preach the gospel there. Indeed, in his first letter to the church in Corinth some years later he wrote, ‘I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling’. It must have been a great source of encouragement to Paul to meet up with this friendly, like-minded, married couple who offered him accommodation in their home. We appreciate human support all the more when we are at our most vulnerable. It was the Lord who was supporting Paul through this married couple and it is the Lord who supports us through the human support that comes our way when we are most in need of it. In the gospel reading, Jesus assures his disciples of his future support. Even though he will soon be put to death, ‘you will no longer see me’, he will rise to new life and come back to them, ‘a short time later you will see me again’. Their profound sorrow at his death will give way to joy when the Lord returns to them and they come to realize that he will always be with them. The Lord is always journeying with us, as he journeyed with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He accompanies us as our support and strength, our rock and refuge. He will often make his support known through people like Priscilla and Aquila in our first reading.

28th April - ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’, Reflection on the readings for Fifth Sunday of Easter (John 15:1-8)

Fifth Sunday of Easter

When I was ordained priest, it was the custom to produce for your first Mass a little prayer card that could be given out to people. The newly ordained priest would normally put a verse from the Bible that was significant for him on the card. On my own card, I placed a verse from today’s gospel reading, ‘Cut off from me you can do nothing’. At the time the verse said to me that it was only through my own personal communion with the Lord that I could do anything worthwhile as a priest, and that, therefore, my own relationship with the Lord was the most important relationship to work on. I still often return to that verse today.

Jesus was speaking to his disciples, to all of us today who are trying to be his disciples. The primary reference for Jesus’ words is not the sacrament of ordination but of baptism. When Jesus says, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’, he is addressing all the baptized. He is speaking about the very deep communion that he wants to have with each one of us, in virtue of our baptism. When you look at a fully grown vine, it can be hard to know where the stem ends and where the branches begin. Jesus was very familiar with vines; there were plenty of them in Galilee. He saw in the intimate relationship between the stem of the vine and its branches an image of the relationship he wanted to have with each of us and wanted each of us to have with him. He doesn’t say, ‘I am the vine and now you must become the branches’, but rather, ‘I am the vine and you are the branches’. The Lord has already entered into a deeply personal relationship with each of us through his life, death, resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit into our lives. He has taken the initiative to enter into this relationship with us and he will never take back his initiative. Our calling is to remain in that relationship which he has initiated with us. In the gospel reading, he calls on us to remain in him, as branches need to remain on the vine. Another way Jesus expresses this call in the gospel reading is, ‘Make your home in me, as I make mine in you’. The Lord has chosen to make his home in us, through the Holy Spirit, and now he calls on us to make our home in him.

What Jesus is doing in today’s gospel reading is reminding us that what is essential in our faith is nurturing our relationship with him, so that we can live off the sap that flows from him, just as the branches of the vine live off the sap that flows from the roots of the vine up into the stem. We might be tempted to think that a close union with Jesus is only for saints and mystics. It is a privilege that is granted to us all. Jesus knew that only our close communion with him would make it possible for us to live with his life, which is a life of loving service of others. This is the fruit that Jesus speaks about in the gospel reading. ‘Whoever remains in me, with me in them, bears fruit in plenty’. Only a branch untied to the vine can produce grapes and only if we are united to the Lord through faith can our lives bear the fruit of the Lord’s love. Many of the children in our schools have recently celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation. As part of their preparation, they learned a short passage from the letter of Saint Paul to the Galatians where he says, ‘the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’. This is the fruit that Jesus speaks about in the gospel reading. Paul speaks of it as the fruit of the Spirit; Jesus speaks of it as the fruit of our communion with him. They are saying the same thing, because it is through the Spirit that the Lord lives in us and we live in him. In the words of Saint John in the second reading, ‘We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us’.

Today’s first reading gives us a picture of what this fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of love, looks like in practice. Saul had been one of the church’s fiercest persecutors. When he became a member of the church after the Lord’s appearance to him on the road to Damascus, it is not surprising that many in the church were suspicious of him, indeed, afraid of him. It was Barnabas, a leading member of the church, who opened the door for Saul, explaining to the doubters that the Lord had appeared to Saul or Paul and had spoken to him and that Paul had been preaching the gospel ever since. Barnabas believed in Paul when others doubted him and he created a space for Paul to exercise the mission the Lord had given him. One of the ways we show our love for others is by creating the space for them to shine, allowing them to become the person God is calling them to be. Such humble service is the fruit of our communion with the Lord.

27th April - ‘To have seen me is to have seen the Father’, Reflection on the readings for Saturday, Fourth Week of Easter (John 14:7-14)

Saturday, Fourth Week of Easter

It is easy to identify with the request of Philip to Jesus in today’s gospel reading, ‘Lord, let us see the Father and then we shall be satisfied’. It was Saint Augustine who said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. We have come from God and we are made for God. It is only when we see God, face to face, that we will be fully satisfied, because only God can satisfy the deepest hungers and thirsts of our heart. We will see God face to face only beyond this earthly life. Saint Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, ‘Now we see as in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face’. Yet, Jesus says to Philip in the gospel reading, ‘To have seen me is to have seen the Father’. No one has revealed God more fully to us than Jesus. To see Jesus is to see God, the Father. We may not see Jesus in the way that Philip, Thomas and the other eye witnesses saw him, but we do see Jesus with the eyes of faith. Jesus, now risen Lord, comes to us through his word, through the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, through one another. There is a real sense in which we can see the Lord in the here and now, even if seeing him ‘face to face’ is only possible beyond this earthly life. In so far as we keep turning towards the Lord who is always coming towards us, that deep hunger and thirst in our hearts will begin to be satisfied, that restlessness in our hearts will begin to be calmed. That is why in one of the other gospels, Jesus calls on us, ‘Come to me, all you labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest’. Here and now, the Lord, the good shepherd, can lead us to restful waters to revive our drooping spirits, giving us a foretaste of the eternal rest that is our ultimate destiny.