TO LOVE IS TO LIVE IN GOD

SUNDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE   

Acts 8:5-8,14-17; Ps 66:1-7,16,20; 1 Pet 3:15-18; Jn 14:15-21

Necessity of Love for the Risen Lord

The major gain we receive from the resurrection of the Lord from the dead and glorification is that he is now the Lord of all. Glorified, he is present through the glory of God to every soul who desires him. This was why he declared to the apostles and disciples that they would benefit more from him when he was gone from them and back to the Father. Another major gain is that he would take care of our sins, which prevent us from participating in the life of God. Because his going is through the passion he was set to undergo in Jerusalem, his suffering and death would bring to perfection his offering or sacrifice of his life to accomplish the Father’s will and make our human nature acceptable to God once more. With his resurrection from death, the Son of Man reconnected human nature to God as it was created to be. Henceforth, any human person who believes in him and invokes his name receives forgiveness of sins and the purification of his or her life for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The disciples of the Lord did not understand these possible gains he was foretelling them; therefore, they were very sad at the prospect of his departure from them. They could not have penetrated this mystery, which is beyond natural human understanding. They had no faith, as such, in his divinity, and could not receive justification in their souls that would grant them spiritual life and sight to understand divine mysteries.

The Gospel from John takes us back to the pre-passion communion they had with the Son of Man and his words revealing the coming dawn of our spiritual Day. “If you love me you will keep my commandments. I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for ever, that Spirit of truth whom the world can never receive since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you.” The Spirit of truth was with the disciples because of the words of the Son of Man they heard and received in their hearts. Because the word of God is Spirit and life, harbouring the word in our minds and hearts makes the Holy Spirit present within us. Though the Spirit was with them, he is yet to make an objective and formal entry into their hearts, which would happen only when the Son of Man has been delivered up for us. Thus, he continued, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you. In a short time, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live.” Here, he points to the new spiritual life they were yet to receive. He will live another form of life, different from the natural one he shares with us; living the divine life would enable him to be in us as our spiritual life. This clearly confirms what we have understood and written above. His glorification, which is the reward of his faithfulness to the Father’s will, causes the same glory to flood our human nature, objectively renewed in him.

The glorification of the Son of Man made the glory of God to be present in our land, as foretold in Psalm 85:9. It means that God is now present in our nature, and any human person has the privilege of beholding God spiritually within himself or herself, with a profession of faith in the death and resurrection of the Son of Man. The absence of divine life and glory to anyone is no longer of God’s doing, but due to the individual’s refusal to believe. “On that day you will understand that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you. Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them will be one who loves me; and anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and show myself to him.” This confirms that baptism admits us into the family of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. We are justified by the cleansing blood of Christ; the Holy Spirit comes into us to give us a spiritual life, which, as we have explained, is Jesus Christ within us. The more we believe and live the Gospel teachings, the more we grow into Jesus Christ, or he grows in us. Therefore, growth in spiritual life occurs through deeper knowledge of the mysteries of Jesus Christ, guided by the Advocate.

What we have explained above was demonstrated in the story of how the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit. Once they welcomed the Gospel message proclaimed to them by Philip, there was nothing else preventing them from receiving the gift from heaven, just as the apostles received. “When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, and they went down there, and prayed for the Samaritans to receive the Holy Spirit, for as yet he had not come down on any of them: they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” Baptism is our profession of faith in Jesus Christ, but the manifestation of the Holy Spirit we received at confirmation awaits the expression of our desire to know and love Jesus Christ above all things. The desire to know Christ and love him indicates our willingness to keep his commandments. Saint Peter describes what this life of deep communion with Jesus implies. “Reverence the Lord Christ in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have.” He added that this may involve suffering hardship and persecution as God wills. “And if it is the will of God that you should suffer, it is better to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong.” He attested to our sufferings as part of the transformation into Jesus Christ, who endured suffering for us. The love of Christ strengthens us to walk the way steadily to fullness of truth and life.

Let us pray: Grant, almighty God, that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy, which we keep in honour of the risen Lord, and that what we relive in remembrance we may always hold to in what we do. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.