An Impartial, Superabundant Love: The Sixth Sunday of Easter 2024

                                            An Impartial, Superabundant Love:

The Sixth Sunday of Easter 2024 

May 5, 2024

www.johnpredmoresj.com | predmore.blogspot.com

predmoresj@yahoo.com | 617.510.9673

Acts 10:25-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17

 

Peter experiences a remarkable conversion when he entered the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, thereby breaking a law from the Torah. Faithful Jews were forbidden to associate with Gentiles in order to remain pure and steadfast. In seeing the works of the Spirit and the deep faith of the Gentiles, Peter states, “I see God shows no partiality.” His whole world order is changed once again. Out of compassion and common sense, Peter is moved to baptize, to incorporate, to welcome those who believe in the Risen Jesus and his message of salvation. There ought to be no impediment for those who profess the faith. No one should be excluded from the Kingdom of God through human initiatives. No one should even try to stop what God is doing because Jesus came to let us know that salvation is for all.  

 

Salvation is not automatically given to groups of people. God shows no partiality. No. Instead, the Gospel is heard and received one soul at a time. People respond to the Gospel message as individuals and cannot earn it for another person. Ask any parent who wants his or her child to return to church. We cannot will another person to hear God’s message of salvation. A person has to hear the message and say yes on one’s own. The message is available to all people, and not everyone is open to the call.

 

As I reflect upon God’s non-partiality clause, I cannot exclude what is happening across university campuses. We are all God’s children, and God does not want harm done to any person or group of people. The war between Israel and Hamas has caused raw wounds to be opened deeper, and the long-standing conflict is being played out in campus spaces. The intensity is high, and many deeply entrenched worldviews, prejudices, and stereotypes are being exposed, and old solutions cannot resolve these new situations. An uncomfortable national dialogue is being advanced, and most are ill-equipped to speak wisely. 

 

God shows no partiality. In matters of salvation, God does not take sides. God does not want violence or destruction. God does not look kindly upon bullying, an increase of hatred, or acts of oppression. God wants us to protect the vulnerable, the weak, the orphaned or widowed, those who are exploited or marginalized. God wants us to be wise, patient, slow to anger, understanding, and rich in mercy. God wants us to build a community of encounter where we see each other as friend and fellow sojourner. 

 

As Christians, we must remember that we are a “both and” and a “now and not-yet” people. This means that we can pray for Jews who are vulnerable and frightened. It means that, at the same time, we can pray for Palestinians and Arabs who are vulnerable and frightened. It is our duty to pray for both – at the same time. We cannot lose any more innocent blood. It means we can call attention to unfair and unjust systems and governments that oppress others out of fear and keep a person from exercising full citizenship. It means that we expose the closed-minded hearts and minds of those who need to turn their hatred into love and acceptance. It means that we work for a community of peaceful relations built on trust and inter-dependence. It means that we may have to upset the status quo so that we can build a system of righteousness and goodness. It means we have a great deal of work ahead of us.

 

God’s kingdom is open to all who seek God. God loves universally – Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, and even Christians. God’s love is impartial. Jesus summed up God’s commandments simply: love one another. It sounds nice. It sounds simplistic. The harder part is putting away our illusions, our misperceptions, our tightly held viewpoints. We need help from one another to do that. Once we recognize that there is a chance that I might be partially wrong, that I might able to learn something new, that I might let my heart be moved to greater charity, that I might become aware or expand my consciousness so that I understand better, then we have the beginnings of love. Dear friends, we need to put love in those hard places of hatred and fear. Our salvation depends upon it. I know you are up to it. I am fully aware you can do it. The world needs you to dig deep and bring God’s love to a hurting world now. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

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 10: Damien de Veuster of Moloka'i, priest (1840-1889), was a Belgian who entered the Congregation of the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. He was sent on mission to the Hawaiian Islands and was a parish priest for nine years. He then volunteered as a chaplain to the remote leper colony of Moloka'i. He contracted leprosy and died at the colony. He is remembered for his brave choice to accept the mission and to bring respect and dignity to the lepers. He was canonized in 2009. A statue of him stands in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• May 5, 1782. At Coimbra, Sebastian Carvahlo, Marquis de Pombal, a cruel persecutor of the Society in Portugal, died in disgrace and exile. His body remained unburied fifty years, till Father Philip Delvaux performed the last rites in 1832. 
• May 6, 1816. Letter of John Adams to Thomas Jefferson mentioning the Jesuits. "If any congregation of men could merit eternal perdition on earth and in hell, it is the company of Loyola." 
• May 7, 1547. Letter of St. Ignatius to the scholastics at Coimbra on Religious Perfection. 
• May 8, 1853. The death of Jan Roothan, the 21st general of the Society, who promoted the central role of the Spiritual Exercises in the work of the Society after the restoration. 
• May 9, 1758. The 19th General Congregation opened, the last of the Old Society. It elected Lorenzo Ricci as general. 
• May 10, 1773. Empress Maria Teresa of Austria changed her friendship for the Society into hatred, because she had been led to believe that a written confession of hers (found and printed by Protestants) had been divulged by the Jesuits. 
• May 11, 1824. St Regis Seminary opens in Florissant, Missouri, by Fr. Van Quickenborne. It was the first Roman Catholic school in USA for the higher education of Native American Indians