Jesus-Holy Spirit-Scripture- Early Church

HOMILY EASTER SEASON WEEK 05 05 – Year II

Love Like Jesus and Live in the Spirit

(Acts 15:22-31; Ps 57; Jn 15:12-17)

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“Love one another as I have loved you” and “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”

These two key sentences from the readings today for Friday of the fifth week of the Easter season invite us to love like Jesus and live in the Spirit as the church.

That one commandment from Jesus sets the bar at the highest possible level. We are to not just love others, but to love them as Jesus has loved us. To obey this commandment is to truly be a friend of Jesus, who desires and intimate friendship relationship with us.

The Word Among Us suggests three ways Jesus loved that we can emulate. The first is that our love be unconditional. Jesus did not withhold his love from the Samaritan woman, who was in an irregular relationship, or the chief tax collector Zacchaeus until they reformed their lives. He knew that   it was an encounter with his love that would spur them to change. So, to love as Jesus loves means loving people as they are, even as we try to gently lead them to the Lord.

The pastoral worker in one community happened to choose Roger, who was standing close by the door at the back of the church, to hold a pole of the canopy for a Corpus Christi procession. Roger always sat at the back of the church because he was in a common-law relationship. The walk to the grotto, so close to Jesus, had an effect on him and got him thinking, because that evening he called me to say he and his partner were thinking of getting married. Had the pastoral worker judged Roger not worthy to help with the canopy, that shift would not have happened. This is the approach Pope Francis teaches – to accept people where they are at and journey with them to a closer relationship with Jesus.

Second, the love of Jesus is also merciful. Look at how he treated the woman caught in adultery, not judging or shaming her at all, or the woman with the alabaster jar who anointed him. Look also at how he forgave Peter’s threefold denial, and actually all the apostles for abandoning him. Jesus even forgave his persecutors from the cross. Loving other people as Jesus loved us is to be merciful towards them, just as we hope they will be merciful towards us. It means letting Jesus’ mercy soften our hearts so that we are ready to forgive the hurts and sins that may come our way.

The love of Jesus is also sacrificial. He often had no place to lay his head. He endured the opposition of the religious leaders. He resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem knowing that he was going there to lay down his life on the cross to redeem the world. Jesus shows us that love will involve sacrifice. It means putting other people’s needs ahead of our own, even – and especially – when it hurts to do so.

Recently, a news agency put out a special on the acts of kindness and generosity that has come out of the current Covid-19 pandemic, and they are numerous. I for one admire the dentist and her assistant who a few days ago had the courage to open up and accept some patients. Even with all the diligence and precautions in the world, they are still taking a chance and putting their lives at risk for the sake of helping those suffering from dental problems. The same would go for all front-line workers who daily step out and face some risk to serve others. That is truly loving as Jesus loved us.

I would add a fourth quality to the love of Jesus, and that is magnanimous. Jesus shares with us all he has learned from the Father. Both he and the Father are generous, beyond extravagant in loving. Think of how magnanimous the act of creation is, still expanding and developing. Our love also needs to be generous and magnanimous.

Loving the way Jesus loves us isn’t easy. Fortunately, we not only have Jesus’ human example to show us what divine love looks like; we also have his presence in our hearts. As we daily open ourselves to his grace, we will find ourselves ever more willing and able to follow his way of love.

The first reading gives us a glimpse into the life of the early church, and the development of some of the first traditions within the life of the church. Whereas our non-Catholic friends tend to go by “scripture alone” and reject the traditions of the Church, they would have to admit that the phrase “scripture alone” is not found in scripture! What we find is the situation described today in which the apostles, when dealing with a controversial issue, made a decision “with the Holy Spirit.” That is what we call the lived word of God, which the Church always balances with the written word of God.

The Eucharist involves two tables – that of the Word and the Eucharist. Celebrating the Eucharist has been a tradition since the very first days of the Church, being faithful what Jesus asked us to do, with the words, “Do this in memory of me.”

May our pondering of his Word today strengthen our faith in him, empower us to love as he has loved us, and to live our lives in the Spirit as member of his Body, the Church.