Daily
Thoughts:
On Holy Thursday during the Eucharist of the Lord’s Supper we heard the verses of
John’s Gospel that lead into to those we hear today. Jesus has washed the feet
of his followers and we learn that Judas has dirtied his hands by betrayal.
Jesus is back at the table and Jesus begins the Good-News, Bad-News of his last
hours with his friends. The bad news is that he is going to be with them for
only a little while longer. The good news is that he will be revealed in all
his glory, upon the Cross. Jesus over the next four chapters of John’s Gospel
will make sure that his message is clear enough for his friends to understand.
What Jesus
make most clear and which he will repeat in chapter fifteen, is that he wishes
them to love one another and by this love stay together as well as increase in
fruitfulness. It is by this love for one another that they will be recognized
and draw others to friendship with God.
Jesus
commands a “new” kind of love which is meant to bring back light, reverence,
respect for what is restoring what God did with the first command at creation.
The disciples are commanded to love each other into life as Jesus has done with
them. Jesus has given them as much as they can handle. Now he is urging them to
love outside the circle, beyond the eleven. They are to encourage others to
reverence themselves as gifts prepared to be given in gratitude to others.
In our
world not all of us enter the process of bringing new sacred life into this
circle of love. Yet, we are all commanded to co-create, and co-recover the
lives within our life’s circle. When understood, this “new commandment” urges
us beyond the emotional experience of love. We are missioned to continue God’s love.
We might say that through us God continues to say, “Let there be light” because
of us. “Let there be love” because of how we live. Imagine all that! That is
mighty “new commandment” and a commandment which surpasses all others.
Yet if we
look around our world, we have the opposite power as well. There is our ability to also not love, to
de-create. It is the “old commandment” which Satan gave to Adam and Eve. However,
Jesus is inviting his disciples and us to accept our being loved by God and
having accepted that, we are challenged to gracefully be instruments of
attracting others into the circle of life. If we love others, we want them to
be, not more than they can be, but more of the God-loved persons that they are.
The more we love others, the more they have the chance to love themselves, the more
the circle of life, the community of life, called Church, will be able to grow larger,
deeper. The more we come to know our true selves, the more we will want to
share with others the love of God.
Jesus handed
his life over to us before he handed his life over to the Cross. We are now
commanded to be the instruments - sacraments - making his creative love a real
presence in the world.
Have a
great Sunday everyone and don’t forget to give God a little time today!
Daily
Prayer:
Help me, O God, to be a good and true friend, to be loyal and never to ley my
friends down: never to talk about them behind their backs in a way that I would
not do to their faces; never to betray a confidence or talk about things I
should be silent about; always to be ready to share everything I have; to be as
true to my friends as I would wish them to be to me. This I ask for the sake of
him who is the greatest and truest of all friends, for Jesus’ sake. Amen. (A
prayer by William Barclay)
A Runner’s
Thoughts:
“A runner must run with dreams in his [or her] heart, not money in his [or her]
pocket.” (Emil Zatopek) So to in the spiritual life…
Daily
Blessing:
Sunday afternoon greetings and blessings to all. I have arrived in Manitowoc,
WI after my long Saturday and early Sunday journey. It was an uneventful and relatively
easy drive. Not much traffic and no significant delays due to construction. My
Sunday started about 5:30 am, I hope yours did not start as early and is
proving to be a pleasant day. The weather here in Manitowoc is cloudy and cool
but as the sister at the front desk told me, “Wait ten minutes it will change!”
I will
spend the rest of my day getting ready to begin a retreat with the sisters here
at Holy Family tomorrow morning. May you spend the rest of your day doing what
you might need to do as you get ready for a new work week. Please keep the
Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity in your prayers this week, especially those
on retreat and if you could mention their preacher in your prayers it would be
greatly appreciated.
May God
bless you with an enjoyable Sunday afternoon and evening especially if you are among
family and/or friends. Through God’s love may the rest of your day offer you
some rest and relaxation so that you might be ready to live a new week by
sharing God’s love!
I will
leave you this afternoon with this thought from Thomas Merton, “Love is the
guarantee that the life of the Spirit is growing in us. Love is the sign of the
Holy Spirit at work in the Church and in the world.” So may God bless you with
much love today and may you love much today. Peace in Christ’s Passion and Joy
in the Risen Lord…Fr. Paul
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