Dear Friends,
The period from the Day of the Resurrection of the Lord and His Ascension can be approached as a time of a second initiation for the Apostles. It is a time Christ journeys with them first to assure them that He is truly risen, He is alive, and secondly a time He insists on the truths about Him. But this time they experience Christ teaching them and explaining to them the intelligence of the Scriptures draws to its end. He announces His ascension, and the apostles are troubled, afraid and anxious. They imagine what could happen once they are left alone.
To assure them, Christ tells his disciples that they will never be alone. First of all, He gives them the new commandment. But didn’t he already give them that commandment at multiple occasions? When answering to the question about the greatest of all commandments, He reminded them that “to love God with one’s heart, one’s strength, and one’s spirit; and to love one’s neighbor as oneself” is the greatest commandment and fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Again, at the Last Supper, He told them and all of us that He was giving us the New Commandment: Love that is expressed through the washing of the feet.
To us today, Christ is saying the same thing: “Remain in me and keep my words.” What these words? It is exactly the new commandment he has given us: to love one another as he has laved us. To keep his words is another way to invite us to abide in Him. Because we are branches and he is the vine, the only way we can bear fruits is to remain in Him, meaning in his love. Because His love for us is the source and the epitome of our love for one another. The challenge here is that we live in a world where it is sometimes hard to truly love and to experience true love, given that we all are broken and weak. We then loose the courage to evangelize and to bear witness. The outcome is either despair or just surrender.
That is when Christ’s today’s exhortation and assurance become more appealing and reassuring for us. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. The Holy Spirit will come and lead you to the whole truth. I leave you my peace…” These reassuring words have their meaning only when we look up to Christ amidst the challenges of our life. As disciples, there is so much to consider that tends to pull us back or to discourage us. Time and again we feel as if we were just left alone and powerless to face the challenges of this world as we strive to bring the light and the love of God out there. Trembling and fearful, like the apostles, we are tempted to lock ourselves in our security boxes and zones. The courage of discipleship built upon the rock of the peace and the assurance from the Lord should always be the rope we hold on to be able to bear witness. Look around you, what the small word are you able to utter in order to change lives and the current of things? What small action can you take to change the dynamics and the ways things are seen and handled? What does the Holy Spirit tell you, and where does he lead to make the love of God more felt and experienced around you? There are the questions we are invited to meditate on this week as we listen the Christ reassuring us that we will never be alone when we engage on the journey of missionary discipleship. This is because we did not choose Him. He is the One who chose us, and who commissioned us, so that we might go and bear fruit.
As we strive to bring Him to the world with courage and trust led by the Holy Spirit, we continue to pray for one another and for our parish family.
Fr. Emery