Breaking Open the Word - 5th Sunday of Easter, Year A
Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A – May 10th, 2020
Before we begin our Scripture sharing for this week, we’d like to share with you bit of “Passionist news.” Today, May 13th, 2020, is the 100th anniversary of the canonization of our Passionist brother, St. Gabriel Possenti! We hope you’ll join us in thanking God for the gift of this special young saint and in asking his intercession for many good and holy Passionist vocations!
This Sunday’s Gospel is taken from Jesus’ beautiful Last Supper discourse in the Gospel of John. We began our discussion at the very start of the passage, where Our Lord states clearly, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” However, just a few hours later in the Garden of Gethsemane, (as well as earlier in the Gospel of John) we are told that Jesus Himself was “troubled!” Why this seeming contradiction? One explanation has to do with Christ taking our sins and sufferings on Himself; He chooses to be troubled on our behalf, and He alone can actually transform this interior suffering into a means of grace. Once we know that Jesus is with us in our “trouble,” we gain strength from His presence to suffer in peace. Another explanation has to do with how deeply we allow tribulation to affect us. Even the greatest Saints experienced emotional struggles and inner turmoil, yet they all testify to a mysterious inner peace beyond the reach of all disturbances. We can’t help being upset by some things (indeed, it would be a problem if we weren’t upset by some things!), but we can imitate the example of Christ, Who even in His agony still stood on the firm foundation of the Father’s Will.
Icon of Christ the Bridegroom
We also considered the implications of the phrase, “I will come and take you to Myself.” A quick survey of Scripture shows this expression being used a number of different times, always with reference to a man taking a wife. It is used of Isaac and Rebekah, Boaz and Ruth, even St. Joseph and Our Lady! Our Lord also refers to the ancient Jewish custom of a bridegroom building a new room on to his father’s house where he could bring his bride on their wedding night. The overall message is clear: Christ is the Divine Bridegroom Who is preparing to wed His bride, the Church. And yet the union He desires with each one of us is even closer than that of a married couple – He wishes us to be totally identified with Himself, just as He is totally identified with the Father. Many people have had the experience of meeting someone very close to Christ and whose very presence radiated that of Jesus!
So what is this “place” Our Lord is so eagerly preparing for us? “Heaven” is the obvious answer, but interestingly enough, Christ tends to speak of Heaven less as a place than as a Person: the Father. Throughout His life, Jesus constantly expresses His love for and joyful obedience to the Father, and He wishes with all His heart that we share in this relationship. Our “dwelling place” in “the Father’s house” is actually the state of being united to the Father, in the Son, through the Holy Spirit. The sheer glory of this destiny is impossible for us to grasp – we are called to live in the very heart of the Trinity for all eternity! In the face of such a staggering mystery, we can only exclaim in the words of the Exsultet, “O Love, O Charity beyond all telling!”
Towards the end of our sharing we also discussed the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the institution of the diaconate. Although the seven men are initially chosen for a very practical reason, it is curious to note that none of them are ever described engaging in this “practical” ministry. Instead, we find them on the front lines of evangelization – for instance, Stephen confronting the Sanhedrin and Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch. It seems that the Holy Spirit worked through the grace of ordination to stir up the hearts of these first seven deacons. While they were certainly deputed for charitable service (as are deacons today), they are also called to proclaim that “man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”