Sixth Sunday of Easter

Today's Mass Readings

“I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” (v 11)

Before this, Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”

I offer this simple thought: the completion of joy in human life, in the human heart, comes from the realization – which often takes a lifetime to realize—that we are on a journey, a trajectory, of being forgiven.

Our tendency is to think that this should happen and be done with so that we can sail on into eternity for the rest of our lives. And we are often bewildered that this is not the case. We wonder, Is God playing with us?

I suggest that the key lies in our Lord’s words, “Remain in my love.” Remain in the stance of trust, not in what I do or don’t do, what I’ve accomplished or have not, but in the trust that I’ve been made for eternity and Christ has been sent to accept my attempts, often over and over again, to be forgiven.

Surely, we have to try and try again and again. And we have to be honest to God that we really want to keep God’s commands, to want to remain in Christ’s love and not treat it carelessly.

The trajectory, the journey, of welcoming forgiveness contends with memories and guilt feelings that we have to face, often over and over again. The key to remaining in Christ’s love is to act with complete dependency upon God’s help, his graces, to remain there and not run away.

There are some lines in an essay by Wendell Berry, entitled, “What are People For,” where the author writes as follows:

                 In his own life, Mark Twain experienced deep grief over the deaths of loved ones, and also severe financial losses. But these experiences    seem to have had the effect of isolating him, rather than binding him to a community. …. In old age, Mark Twain had become obsessed with “the damned human race” and the malevolence of God – ideas that were severely isolating and, ultimately, self-indulgent. He was finally incapable of that magnanimity that is the most difficult and the most necessary: forgiveness of human nature and human circumstance. Given human nature and human circumstance, our only relief is in this forgiveness, which then restores us to community and its ancient cycle of loss and grief, hope and joy.

We want to stay on the journey, the trajectory, of being forgiven. We can only do this in the magnanimity which comes from welcoming the Holy Spirit’s action in our hearts!

Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB