Word to the Wise
Thursday, May 6, 2021 - 5th Week of Easter - Thurs
[Acts 15:7-21 and John 15:9-11]"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 might be in you and your joy might be complete." [John]
A question that often puzzles Catholics when it is addressed to them is: "Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior?" We are so accustomed to thinking in terms of "the church" and "the sacraments" that we tend to allow these realities to serve as our relationship to Jesus. For some, this relationship may be more personally expressed by participation in eucharistic adoration, but, even there, Jesus may be held at "arms' length" and too sacred to approach as one person to another. The Farewell Discourse at the Last Supper challenges each of the disciples (and us) to think about our own relationship to Jesus and how we express that relationship to others. There is no "mediating" reality such as church and sacraments in this. Those are definitely part of our faith and are addressed elsewhere in the New Testament. The Protestant Reformation tried to eliminate much of those in its individualistic interpretation of scripture. We Catholics went to the other extreme and tended to substitute the institution of the church for the person of Jesus. These are broad generalizations, but I think it explains why we Catholics are puzzled by the question I began with: "Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior?"
Today's passage from the Farewell Discourse is another example of the relationship described in the word "remain." How does one "remain" in love with Jesus or anyone else? It can be instructive to consider the long term relationships in our own lives. There are friends in my life dating from my first assignment as a newly ordained Domnican friar/priest in 1971. I've known these persons 50 years!!! They have "remained" in my life as a very personal and enriching reality. In no small way they represent the love of Jesus to me, a continual presence. Jesus challenges us to love neighbor as Jesus loves his Father and us. Can we sustain that effort as we have sustained it in our long term friendships? It takes effort and a sense of humor as well. Can we bring that to our relationship with Jesus as well as with one another? AMEN