Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter(Click here for readings)
Jesus said to his disciples: "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commands, 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 might be in you and your joy might be complete."
As the Father loves me, so I love you. This is one of the most beautiful verses in all of Scripture. It gives me so much peace. It blows my mind! It also brings me comfort. To know that Jesus loves me just as much as the Father loves him is, well, reassuring! Thank God for some warm mushy guarantees in life! Thank you Jesus!
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love. We spend far too much time worrying about individual rights and not enough time talking about individual obligations. Also, we seem to be focused on expanding individual rights and not individual obligations. No wonder why there is a lack of love in our hearts and in our dealings with others. Love, like numbers, has meaning only if attached to someone or something. The same holds true of Christianity. It only becomes meaningful if attached to Someone and Something; that is, Jesus Christ and His Commandments.
Jesus once said, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (Jn 13:35).
And now that we are in graduation season, we might as well say graduation becomes truly meaningful and exciting only if it is attached to service towards others.
Complete joy. Why does the Lord speak to us? Why does He admonish us? Why does He insist that we have faith in Him, obey Him and follow Him? For one simple reason: so that His joy might be in us and our joy might be complete.
This sounds like a good enough reason for me to follow Him.
If we let the Lord down, what we are really doing is letting ourselves down.
Let's go out today and "proclaim God's marvelous deeds to all the nations" (Ps. 96:3).
True Joy. I learned an important lesson this Lent. It believe it really is possible to keep the Commandments and even keep close to the sacraments without experiencing true joy. How so? I think I actually believed I was in charge! I was not humble. Unless there is a complete surrender of self, an abandonment to Him, you really can't experience joy. This Lent I completely turned things upside down and decided to completely allow myself to love Christ without reservation. This meant that I had to spend more time with Him, going to daily mass, reading scripture, going to adoration, etc. I found out something interesting, the more time you spend with Him, the more time you want to spend with Him. I actually found myself so happy to get up to meet our Lord at 6:30 am mass. Is this weird? I found myself excited to hang out with God, as much as my spouse or a close friend. Everything seems easier now -- even living with a chronic illness, no longer seems hard. I didn't know why I was holding back for so many years. I think it's because I was afraid to not be in control. Now that I am actually at peace with not being in control (maybe the first baby step in humility), I feel so unburdened, so happy, so filled with His Peace and Joy. This reminds me of the words of St. Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me." (Galatians 2:19-20).
ReplyDelete"As the Father loves me, so I also love you."
ReplyDeleteThis is one of those verses that made me think Jesus was supposed to be a completely separate entity from God. Similar to
"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
or
"These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me."
So God loves himself and the father knows what the son does not, but they are one in the same.