BIBLE STUDY #89

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

May 13, 2012

Reading 1 

Acts of the apostles 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48

When Peter entered, Cornelius met him
and, falling at his feet, paid him homage.
Peter, however, raised him up, saying,
"Get up. I myself am also a human being."

Then Peter proceeded to speak and said,
"In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly
is acceptable to him."

While Peter was still speaking these things,
the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word.
The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter
were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit
should have been poured out on the Gentiles also,
for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God.
Then Peter responded,
"Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people,
who have received the Holy Spirit even as we have?"
He ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

The Word of the Lord

Reading 2 

1 John 4:7-10

Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.

The Word of the Lord

Gospel 

John 15:9-17

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."

The Gospel of the Lord

Reflection

Today’s Gospel is the second half of the Vine and the Branches we heard last week and is part of a farewell discourse that takes place at the Last Supper, which is modeled after similar discourses in Greek literature and in the Old Testament. Jesus is about to die and to rise, and he tells his followers about the privileges and responsibilities of being part of the vine, that is, of being a disciple.

The Father is the example, par excellence, of one who loves and gives. The Father is the source of love which is a divine gift that is expressed in the Son. This love is a communication of life that the Father gives to the Son. Therefore, the Father is love because he is the one who initiates love through perfect self communication of his life.

The Son shares the Father’s love for him and his love for the Father with us. Jesus is the vine by which God’s love is transmitted to us. The Son and the Father are bonded together in an unbreakable bond of love. When we remain in Jesus love, we are bonded to the Father through the Son. The more we remain in that love, the stronger that bond becomes until it is so strong that no person or no thing can ever separate us from God’s love. Regardless of what happens in our lives, our love for the Father and Son is so strong that we always feel that love and that bond will always be there.

A great example of this is the love that a married couple has for each other after many years of marriage. An elderly couple in my first assignment after ordination had this kind of love. Every Lent he would say to me, “Father I’m giving up my wife for Lent. You’re supposed to give up what you love the most, aren’t you?” His wife would give him the ‘raspberries’ when he said that, although you could see that she loved him the same way. He also said that he wished that he would die before his wife because he didn’t want to live without her. That’s what all love should be like: life doesn’t make sense without the beloved, whether it’s a spouse or God.

How do we develop this bond with God? We do this by keeping his commandments.  Not the ones we like, not the ones that are easy for us, but all of them. When we do this, we are following in Jesus foot steps; he was the obedient Son who perfectly, and in all ways, followed his Father’s commandments. He remains in his Fathers love through obedience, and we participate in the love of God when we follow God’s commandments.

This is the source of the belief that love is an action. God showed us his love through action; the action of sending his Son to suffer, die, and rise, so that we may live. The greatest act of love is to give everything we have, including our life, for those we love.

Loving in this way is what gives us joy. This joy is not just a feeling of happiness, but a deep and abiding joy that comes from knowing how much God loves us and has done for us. God blesses us with joy when we keep his commandments because he made us to abide in him, which is the way to true peace, happiness, and meaning. When we love like Christ loves, we feel the joy we were made to enjoy.

We have been chosen by God and given a mission: to love one another. We do this every time we act like Christ for another. Whenever we are caring, forgiving, sacrificing, being humble, or in anyway we act like Christ, we love like Christ loved. We share that love with others, like Peter does in the first reading, so that as many as possible can feel God’s love. God wants all people to feel his love, and he is depending on all of us to be the instruments by which his love is spread everywhere.

 I would like to offer a tribute to all mothers and to all those women who act like mothers to us for their kindness, generosity, and love to us. Someone sent me the following story a few years ago. It exemplifies everything I have been trying to say but in a more modern way. Thanks to all those mothers who love greatly so that we may greatly live.

Invisible Mother

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store.  Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.  I'm invisible.  The invisible Mom.   Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this?  Can you tie this?  Can you open this?

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being.  I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?'   I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England.   Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in.   I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well.  It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself.  I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.'  It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe.  I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book.  And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.  The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam.  He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof?  No one will ever see it.'  And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place.  It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte.  I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does.  No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction.   But it is not a disease that is erasing my life.  It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness.  It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder.  As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.'  That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself.  I just want him to want to come home.  And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals.  We cannot be seen if we're doing it right.  And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

Great Job, MOM!  Share this with all the Invisible Moms you know...I just did.  The Will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.

It's the things we achieve through God that gives us our joys in life.

Fr. Phil