Seventh Week of Easter
On Sunday, most of the world will celebrate the Ascension of the Lord, and the dioceses who celebrated the feast earlier, will celebrate the Seventh Sunday of Easter. As if in preparation for Pentecost Sunday, we read in Acts of the stoning of Stephen, who is “filled with the Holy Spirit.” In John's Gospel the poetic words of Jesus are a love song to us as he prays to his Father, “Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me....”
During the upcoming week, the first reading
continues from the Acts of the Apostles. We are following
the preaching and ministry of Paul. We can feel his intensity as he
urges the Ephesians to follow his example in living the faith “I
served the Lord with all humility and with the tears and trials that
came to me...” He returns to Jerusalem to face persecution but
remains under house arrest, teaching and meeting with followers.
The gospels are
from John's Gospel, chapter 16 and 17. Jesus warns his disciples
that they will be scattered and says they will find trouble in the
world but assures them he has conquered the world. Jesus' prayer reflects
the passionate, inseparable nature between him and his Father. “I
glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me
to do.” “I pray ... that they may all be one ... as you,
Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.” Jesus challenges Peter three times to “feed my sheep” and
the Easter season comes to a close as John's gospel concludes
on Saturday. These wonderful readings end: “There are also many
other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually,
I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would
be written.”
Sunday
is the great feast of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. The readings and the whole
Church celebrate the coming and ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit
among us. The Apostles who had been so frightened are now on fire. Now they can speak clearly, so everyone can understand them. In John's Gospel, Jesus breathes on his jittery followers and tells them,
“Peace be with you” and fills them with courage, giving them the mission to forgive and sending them to carry out his desire that we all be one. |
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Daily
Prayer This Week
We
can hardly believe the message from this week's gospel. It is one of
complete invitation to us. Jesus tells us of his intimate bond with
the Father and invites us into the same kind of close relationship with
Jesus himself.
He does not promise
us a trouble-free life, and is clear about the challenges we will face
as his followers. He cautions us that the world will want to make us
one of “its own” and Jesus lovingly protests that we are
his, not the world's. He prays to the Father of us, “They are your
gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me...”
This kind of loving
dialogue with the Father is what Jesus wants with us. It does not mean
our lives will be trouble-free but we are offered the peace in our hearts
that Jesus longs to give us.
Some days we may
feel anything but peace in our hearts. That is the time to pause and
open our hands and our hearts to the Lord. Just the simple physical
act of opening our hands can send a signal to our hearts. We can stop
thinking and start feeling the love that Jesus has for us.
We can begin each
morning at the side of our beds, aware of the sacredness of the day
ahead of us, and ask for peace, courage and guidance. On our way to
work or while taking care of our family, cooking or running errands,
we can stop for the briefest moment and ask again: “Lord, help
me to feel how much you love me. Help me to accept that love and carry
it to all those you send into my life today.”
And at the end
of the day, we can pause again at the side of our bed, reflect for a
moment on our day and offer thanks for the moments where we felt in
our hearts the love of Jesus. And, we can ask that tomorrow we can feel
the Lord's own love and compassion for us - and beg that we can pass
that along.
Like Peter in Friday's
gospel, we have denied Jesus many times in our lives but he looks at
us again with love and simply says, “Follow me.” |
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