If Ye Love Me. The Sixth Sunday of Easter 2020

If Ye Love Me.

The Sixth Sunday of Easter 2020

www.johnpredmoresj.com | predmore.blogspot.com

predmoresj@yahoo.com | 617.510.9673

May 17, 2020

Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; Psalm 66; 1 Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21

Peter exhorts us to always be ready to give an explanation for the reason for your hope, but to do it with gentleness and reverence. As Christians, our hope is Trinitarian: God listens well and responds to our prayers, the risen Christ remains with us as an advocate and companion, and the Spirit will create loving energy around our relationship with God and others. We want our lives to have meaning and to be in the best relationship with those who are important to us. Living well and trusting that God will steer our hearts and actions are signs of our hope.

In Acts, the disciples had to flee Jerusalem and some made their way to the Samaritan villages with Philip, who spoke of Jesus as the Christ. The Samaritans had the origins of their faith with Abraham, but worshiped in a different style and held different beliefs. Jews and Samaritans retained their antagonistic tendencies. The Samaritans were familiar with Jesus of Nazareth, who passed through their towns during his ministry, and is known for giving eternal drink to the woman at the Jacob’s well. After preaching, Philip worked signs and miracles in the name of Jesus and many people were converted to the faith, but their inclusion was not complete until Peter and John or the other Apostles laid hands of them to receive the Holy Spirit.

We are pointed to the Holy Spirit in our readings as the one who will keep us united in the faith and will continue to reveal God’s mind, heart, and values to us so that we are drawn ever closer. This is the Spirit of Truth who is always trying to remind us that God will abide by us forever. The Spirit is going to keep all things together, especially in times when we might feel like we are about to lose hope. One of the Spirit’s great actions is that it is always trying to work towards reconciling people so they can reclaim the love that once was abundant, and the Spirit is always going to bring us closer to God. Any movement towards greater love is a movement of the Spirit inching us closer to love. In the beginning as at the end, the meaning of our lives is witnessed by an increase of the growing love we have for others.

 It is helpful if we spend time in the realm of the Spirit by engaging in activities that inspire us, give us a sense of serving the needs of others, treating other with gentleness and reverence, and creating conditions around us that reveal our honest care for someone else’s well-being. We want to be always be trying to reveal the heart of God to others through us, and as God abides by us, we can give others the gift of abiding by them. In our routine moments of the day or at our big moments of ultimacy, we want to know that we are loved, honored, and cherished, and we know we are alive when we are able to love another person just as they are.

Those who love each other fully are the happiest people in the world. Everything depends upon how much we love one another. What is my account of hope? My hope is based on the realization that Christ loves me as I do not deserve, but he keeps loving me. That is staggering to me, but it helps me to try to love another person just a little more, and then to rely upon the grace of God to sustain us in communion.

Scripture for Daily Mass

First Reading:

Monday: (Acts 16) Paul and Barnabas set sail for Philippi, a leading city of Macedonia, and a Romany colony. Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, listens to their preaching and opens her heart to them. She is baptized and invites them to stay with her.  

Tuesday: (Acts 16) Paul is brought to the Areopagus in Athens and tells them of the Unknown God he and Barnabas worship.

Wednesday: (Acts 17) At the Areopagus, Paul declares that this unknown God is the same one Christians worship and has brought about salvation, including the resurrection of the dead. This concept unsettles some who find it a difficult teaching to accept.

Thursday: (Acts 15) Paul travels to Corinth and meets the Jews, Aquila and Priscilla, who were forced to leave Rome because of Cladius’ dispersion edict. He learns the tent-making trade and preaches to Jews who reject him. He encounters Titus Justus and Crispus, a synagogue leader, who comes to believe. The entire congregation believes the news of Jesus Christ.

Friday (Acts 18) While in Corinth, Paul receives a vision from the Lord urging him to go on speaking as no harm will come to him. Others are harmed, but Paul escapes injury.

Saturday (Acts 18) Paul travels to Antioch in Syria. Priscilla and Aquila meet Apollos, a Jewish Christian, who is preaching the way of Jesus, but of the baptism by the Holy Spirit he is not informed. They take him aside and teach him the correct doctrine. He then vigorously refutes the Jews in public, establishing from the Scriptures that the Christ is Jesus.

Gospel: 

Monday: (John 15) Jesus tells his friends that the Advocate will come and testify to him. Meanwhile, they will be expelled from the synagogues and harmed – even unto death.  

Tuesday: (John 16) The Advocate, the Spirit of truth, will guide his friends to all truth. Jesus confuses them by saying, “a little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.”

Wednesday (John 16) The Spirit of truth will guide you and will declare to you the things that are coming. The Spirit will glorify. Everything the Father has is mine.

Thursday (John 15) Remaining close to Jesus will allow us to share complete joy with one another.

Friday (John 16) As they debate, he tells them their mourning will become joy – just like a woman who is groaning in labor pains.

Saturday (John 16) As Jesus tells them again that he is part of the Father, he instructs them to ask for anything in his name and God will grant it because Jesus is leaving the world and is going back to the Father. The Father loves them because they have loved him. The Father will reward them for their generosity.

Saints of the Week

May 18: John I, pope and martyr (d. 526), was a Tuscan who became pope under the rule of Theodoric the Goth, an Arian. Theodoric opposed Emperor Justin I in Constantinople who persecuted Arians. John was sent to Justin to end the persecutions. He returned to great glory, but Theodoric was not satisfied, though Justin met all his demands. John was imprisoned and soon died because of ill treatment.

May 20: Bernardine of Siena, priest, (1380-1444) was from a family of nobles who cared for the sick during plagues. He entered the Franciscans and preached across northern and central Italy with homilies that understood the needs of the laity. He became vicar general and instituted reforms.

***Please note that the Ascension is celebrated in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Newark, Hartford, and Omaha on Thursday. Most of the world celebrates the feast on  Sunday.

May 21: Ascension Thursday is a holy day of obligation. It marks the event in the life of the Resurrected Christ who departed from this temporal earth to return to God. It celebrates Jesus’ visible absence while recognizing his invisible presence to the world. It is the event in the life of Christ when his physical appearances came to an end so he could resume his place at the right hand of the Father in heaven. St. Ignatius was so desirous of learning about the historical Jesus that he traveled to the places in the Holy Lands where Jesus walked and lived. As he was getting kicked out of the Holy Lands, he desired to return to the place of the Ascension to see the direction of Jesus’ feet as he ascended to God. A novena is prayed beginning on this day as we await the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

May 21: Christopher Magallanes, priest and companions, martyrs (1869-1927) was a Mexican priest who served the indigenous people by forming agrarian communities. He opened seminaries when the ant-Catholic government kept shutting them down. He was arrested and executed with 21 priests and 3 laymen.

May 22: Rita of Cascia, religious (1381-1457), always wanted to become a nun but her family married her off to an abusive man. He was murdered 18 years later. Rita urged forgiveness when her two sons wanted to avenge their father's murder. They soon died too. Rita wanted to enter a convent, but he marital status kept her out. Eventually, the Augustinians in Cascia admitted her. She became a mystic and counselor to lay visitors.

This Week in Jesuit History

·      May 17, 1572. Pope Gregory XIII exempted the Society from choir and approved simple vows after two years of novitiate and ordination before solemn profession. In these matters he reversed a decree of St Pius V.

·      May 18, 1769. The election of Cardinal Lorenzo Ganganelli as Pope Clement XIV. He was the pope who suppressed the Society.

·      May 19, 1652. Birth of Paul Hoste mathematician and expert on construction of ships and history of naval warfare.

·      May 20, 1521. Ignatius was seriously wounded at Pamplona, Spain, while defending its fortress against the French.

·      May 21, 1925. Pius XI canonizes Peter Canisius, with Teresa of the Child Jesus, Mary Madeleine Postal, Madeleine Sophie Barat, John Vianney, and John Eudes. Canisius is declared a Doctor of the Church.

·      May 22, 1965. Pedro Arrupe was elected the 28th general of the Society of Jesus.

·      May 23, 1873. The death of Peter de Smet, a famous missionary among Native Americans of the great plains and mountains of the United States. He served as a mediator and negotiator of several treaties.