Gospel Reflection May 5 – Father Lynch
Sunday, May 5
Sixth Sunday of Easter
John 15: 9-17
Gospel:
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.”
Gospel Reflection:
In today’s Gospel (Jn15:9-17) Jesus teaches his early disciples and us today a valuable lesson which requires an active response from his followers. He says, “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.” He then goes on and commands us to, “love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Sisters and brothers in Christ, Jesus is teaching us what Love is, and how to properly love! The Greeks would say this love is called “Agape,” the highest form of love. Any husband and wife can attest to this mystery through the sacrament of matrimony. First, with each other, when on the day of their marriage they gave free consent to God and each other that they would spend the rest of their lives modeling Christ in laying down their lives for each other. Secondly, as couples’ married lives progress, often a child and/or children come along through the unitive aspect of sacrament, and the deepening of this mystery of God’s love is strengthened, laying down your lives for each other and children. From a much larger picture, we are all children of God and Jesus laid down and gave his life for our salvation.
As a priest, I have had the experience of seeing Christ’s joy in all of you. Jesus says that fidelity to God’s love means that we remain obedient to God through his Son and that His joy may be complete in and through us, as active members of His Church manifest here on this earth for us! It reminds me of the reality that we did not make up the Church, rather that Jesus Christ formed the Church to guide, sustain, and nourish us on our pilgrimage of life. If we happen to fall out of this love, we are always reinvited back to the fullness of His love through confession.
A well-known theologian and author from Franciscan University of Steubenville put it best in his reflection for this weekend’s Gospel and readings, as Prof. Scott Hahn recently wrote: “In the Church, each of us has been begotten by the love of God. But the Scriptures today reveal that this divine gift brings with it a command and a duty. We are to love one another as we have been loved. We are to lay down our lives in giving ourselves to others—that they too might find friendship with Christ and new life through Him.”
St. Brigid of Kildare…Pray for us!
Father Lynch