Gospel John 14:23-29
Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me. “I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.”
Homily
“Guys I am so sad and lonely. I am 38 and have nothing to show for it. I just had 3 mini strokes and lost my husband in March. Now I find out my roommate is letting a hooker stay here and there is nothing I can do about it. I was diagnosed with bi-polar and have no meds. I am a good person that doesn’t lie and does not do drugs anymore and I quit smoking. NOTHING I DO IS GOOD ENOUGH. I have no friends. Nothing but my 2 cats and now I may lose them because she wants me to leave. NO MONEY, NO FOOD, NO FRIENDS, NO BOYFRIEND OR HUSBAND, AND I LOST MY DAUGHTER BECAUSE I CAN’T AFFORD TO KEEP HER.
I WANT TO DIE. I may go soon. I just wanted to cry out hoping, maybe someone can help or give me words to keep me here. I feel nothing but sadness. Loneliness. dread. God please, I want to go home. Please let me come home.”
I read the above on an internet site one day. As I began to meditate on the Gospel passage given to us for our meditation this weekend, this quotation, full of grief and pathos came to mind because it is the exact opposite of what our Gospel passage promises us. In it this very distraught woman calls on God to let her come home. In this gospel passage however Jesus tells his disciples; “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” Here is the promise of Jesus; God, Father, Son and Spirit wants to come to us and make God’s home with us. There is only one condition and that condition is that we keep Jesus’ word because of love for Him. What is Jesus’ word? Jesus of course as you know said many things during the course of his public ministry but everything which he said is summed up in the double commandment. The Gospel of St. Matthew: Chapter 22: verses 35-40 says this; “Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with thy entire mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
This saying was further clarified by Jesus in the priestly prayer just before his passion when he told his disciples; “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13: 34”
Jesus’ word can be summed up then as; Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with thy entire mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
Keeping this Word of Jesus assures us that the promise of Jesus will be fulfilled in our lives.
God; Father, Son and Spirit will come to us and make his home with us. We no longer will have to plead with God to take us to his home because God will be dwelling with us.
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In practice, loving the Lord our God with all one’s heart, and with all one’s soul, and with one’s entire mind and loving one another as Christ loved us, suggests certain concrete actions from us.
It suggests first of all that we build a loving relationship with God through the practice of frequent contact with God, through daily visits to the Blessed Sacrament and through frequent prayer, for most of us not long prayers, we live very busy lives, but short heartfelt prayers, like the text messages we sometimes send to those we love. (I need you Lord; I cannot live without you; how important you are to me? etc.) Those phrases from the heart repeated frequently will build in us love for God.
Loving the neighbour as Christ loved us means putting the other first, as Christ put us and our salvation before himself. If that were not so he would never have died on the cross.
When we build these habits of love; when these habits of love define us, then Christ and the Father with the Spirit come to us and make their dwelling with us. To live like that then is already to begin to live heaven on earth. This is what all the saints did. This is where they got the strength to live lives totally dedicated to God and the Kingdom. This is what gave them peace and joy in spite of the struggles which they always had to endure.
May you and I have the wisdom to hear Christ’s Word and to keep it so that with the Father and the Holy Spirit Christ may make his dwelling with us.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, there are many voices in the world struggling to make themselves heard. There are voices calling us to violent reactions; there are voices calling us to vengeance, there are voices calling us to love of money or power; there are voices calling us to pleasure. In the midst of all those voices there is the voice of Jesus, your Son, calling us to love.
Help us to hear that voice and help us to respond to it so that You Father, with Jesus and the Spirit, may come to us and make your dwelling with us. We ask this through the intercession of Mary our Mother and Jesus your Son. Amen
