April 24, 2016

 April 24, 2016 Fifth Sunday of Easter C Acts 14: 21-27; Revelation 21: 1-5; John 13: 31-35 This week as I reviewed the readings and the Psalm Response, four sentences kept on returning to me to be the focal point of my reflection. “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God…God dwells with us…and we will be His people and God Himself will always be with us as our God…Jesus says, ‘As I have loved you, so you also should love one another…this is how all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another…and my response, I will praise Your name for ever, my King and my God.” It seems to be that this is to be the main focal point of every minute of my life. Is it? No, not really. Nor is it possible, but it is something that I can keep returning to and keep my focus on. Why should I do this? Because these words encapsulate God’s plan for me in His world. The second reading comes from the book Book of Revelation and the passage ends with the statement, “Behold, I make all things new.” What is this “new” thing or plan or reality that God wants me to see and be a part of? We can see the answer to this in the very first sentence of the passage, “Then I, John saw a new heaven and a new earth.” John was on the island of Patmos and shares various visions that tell the story of the final days that culminate in a spectacular vision of a new creation. Now the important part of this vision is that I am a part of it…so is each person who is reading this…as is every person created by the Lord. To ‘envision this’ I have to step aside and look at the whole of God’s picture. It’s like I’m standing in heaven looking out of an enormous picture window and seeing the world: where it came from… what has happened…and the future, which is me and my part. I am looking at the world in a deeper vision and myself on a deeper level. What I see is God’s plan from the very beginning was to bring everyone to Himself. In creating He blessed us with a free will which has been a blessing and our downfall. But all along God has been forming us to be His people. This could only be accomplished if each one realizes that it is not about me and my world and what I want but it’s about all of us together and God’s plan to bring us together to be His people. So I look at the big picture and see how things were before…pretty horrible as I see it but not as God sees it. He was fashioning us and sculpting us and we didn’t know it. It took the coming of His plan in its fullness for us to realize this. There are so many passages in Scripture that bring this out, but the one I think expresses itself most beautifully is the one that everyone knows—John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” The footnote in the New American Bible clarifies the word, gave by stating, “Gave: as a gift in the Incarnation, and also ‘over to death’ in the crucifixion; cf Romans 8:32” So God is calling all to look at His plan before Christ and the way things are now after Christ. Most importantly it is causing me to stop and realize how God views me in His Plan. God is my Father, Jesus is my brother, I a part of their loving creation and their loving plan. I have a very important part in their plan because that’s why I was created at this time and in this place so that I could continue to be Jesus in my world with my gifts and continuing on in this work only through God’s grace. Faith Catholic explains this so beautifully in its reflection on today’s readings. I quote a major part of this that helped me tremendously. It states, “We live in the time that is already but not yet. In HIs anointed one, in Christ, God has ushered in His kingdom here on earth. It is a kingdom that has been established and is now in the process of unfolding among us. Our status with God has been fundamentally and radically changed. Christ has given us His salvation. What we do with it remains to be seen. We live in God’s time, the time that is already but not yet. What is yet to be and what can be for us individually is revealed in the Book of Revelation, which is a book of hope, of promise and of glory. Whether that hope, promise and glory will be ours personally depends on our response to what God has done and is doing now for us. All of this points to the fact that we must have eyes to see and ears to hear. We cannot be passive, thinking that God will give it all to us anyway, even if we don’t respond to HIm. There’s nothing passive about being a follower of Christ. No! We must actively listen; we must actively respond; we must put into action, in our daily lives, the gifts God has given us and is giving us in His Christ. Whether or not we will be ultimately saved and spend eternity in the New Jerusalem depends on us. How will we respond? Will we, with Peter, seek and accept the hope, promise and glory that Jesus Christ offers us all? Or will we sink in this world’s despair? Do you think there’s nothing new in our world? Will we settle for only the glitz and glitter of this world, its thirty pieces of silver and thereby see our souls for nothing more? The answer to these questions, along with our salvation, depends on us. God offers, we respond. When we do, something marvelously new happens within us.” I come back to the ‘focus sentences’ that I started with because they give me a way to continue working on God’s plan. Luke shares in the Acts that I will be undergoing many hardships. I see this in two ways: first just in living there are crosses within and crosses without. Some days it’s easy, many days it’s not. There is pain physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. The devil just does not want people to know that they are loved and God needs them to love—so there are roadblocks galore. As Revelation tells us that God is absolutely always with me and helping me. It has nothing about me, it’s about God’s plan and can only be lived out with God and in God. And how I am to live this out…John shares the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, God loves me,and I am to love by loving those He has placed in my life, directly and indirectly. Is this all…no, Psalm 145 tells me of the greatness and goodness of God and I am to be grateful and BE and God needs me to BE. “The Lord is gracious and merciful” as I am called to BE…”The Lord is good to all” as I am called to BE…”The Lord is compassionate” as I am called to BE…”All Your works give You thanks, O Lord” as I am called to DO. “My mouth will speak Your praise, Lord; all flesh will bless Your holy name forever.” I reflect on: • I find that at the end of the day when I reflect on how I loved that day and most especially how I saw God’s love, I become more conscious of my role to be love. • What does sacrifice mean to me? Sacred Space 2016 shares, “Right through His final meal, Jesus has been revealing the depth of His love for His disciples. Judas’s heart, however, is coarsened by greed; he moves from flight into shadow-land, into the night. Hate replaces love, and betrayal replaces committed friendship. Lord, like Judas, I can turn from You, lured by my own autonomous way. In this place of prayer let me recline on Your heart, as the beloved disciple did. May I thus be attuned to the very heartbeat of God and grow steadily in living in a loving mode.”