5th Easter - Fr. Leo
In the Creed, we profess “God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” We believe God created all things, and in Genesis, we learn he created us in his image and breathed his own life into us. Thus, we are the children of God. Not by our doing, but by God’s!
To make us aware of God’s self-giving creative love for us, he sent his only Son into the world to draw us to himself. As we come to know Jesus, the Father’s word spoken to us, we become his intimate friends through sharing in his Spirit.
As the Spirit lives in us, we become one with Christ and thus one with God. We move from being friends to being the sons and daughters of God. To know the Son is to know the Father, and our true self, as Christ’s spirit lives in us. We then can come to proclaim with St. Paul that is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.
Jesus, in today’s gospel from John 14:1-12, is trying to bring his disciples to this understanding of our sharing in God’s being, something that just “is” and is the basis of all life and love, indeed, of our own “being”. He teaches that to know him, is to know the Father. And a sign that we “know” him, is when Christ’s out pouring of self in love for us, becomes our pouring back to God and to all God’s people.
The great work we shall accomplish, as Jesus said, is the sharing of the love we have received. Love always moves out to the other. This is not something we do, it is a gift. Ours is to simply desire a relationship with God in Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is this desire that opens us up to the work of the Spirit who draws us to God through the scriptures and sacraments.
The challenge we face is to seek God, and not the god of our own making. This is why we commune with the scriptures, do spiritual reading, and meditate and pray contemplatively. In this, life becomes a prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit. We begin to love as God’s love. We embrace mercy over justice and give to all the unconditional love we receive.
This is a life long work and reaches its perfection in heaven when we will see God face to face. For now, ours’s is too long for God with our whole being. To desire God more than anything else every moment of our lives. This may sound like a burden, but in a living relationship with God it is shear peace and joy.
At that moment we can understand Jesus’ first words in today’s gospel: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” So let us place our faith in God, and in Christ, and know we live even now. by grace of the Holy Spirit, in the house of God.