Sixth Sunday of Easter

 

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." (John 15: 9-17)

In today’s Gospel we see that faith in Christ is Christ gift to us. The key today is not simply following the commandments, turning around to see if Jesus is watching. It is more that that. John Shea once said, “if people grasp and understand themselves as link in the love chain from the Father to Jesus, from Jesus to them, and from them to one another, they will be moved from being anxious." Our society today is full of anxiety as we witness wars, dissension, racial conflicts, political storms, and a lack of compassion. This does not have to be a way of life; we can resist that because it's anti- resurrection. Being separated from others, from the form of always making sure that I come first, and that we can only think about everyone else or we're following our own bliss and not having a sense of the common good is preferred. We are invited to remember that the Risen Christ opened his arms wide and always desires that we remain in Him always.

May Christ dwell in our hearts through faith, that rooted and grounded in love, we may have the strength to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.