Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

As I have noted before, people in the Gospel of John often wonder where Jesus came from and where is he going. When John the Baptist directs two of his disciples to follow Jesus, the first thing they ask is, “Where do you live?” He replies, “Come and see.”

Pontius Pilate will ask, “Where are you from?” to which Jesus says nothing. Pilate, who understands only raw power, cannot fathom the mystery of Jesus.

Jesus tells Nicodemus he is “from above” and then he prophesies that he must be “lifted up.” What would Nicodemus make of that?

In today’s gospel, Jesus gives us the clearest indication of where he is from. These words go as far as words can go. Only his crucifixion can take us further.

I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love

That’s where he comes from, where he lives, and where he is going. But of course he doesn’t tell us that as a piece of information. Like his reply to John’s disciples, it’s an invitation: Remain in my love.

Jesus wants us to live with him in his Father’s love; we do so by living in love with one another. As he says, “My command to you is love one another.”

So it’s laid out in a kind of circle: Jesus lives within the Father’s love; and we live in his love, and others come to live in our love; and "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.

In the Liturgy of the Church and our personal devotions, in our public generosity and private penances we are caught up in the love-life of our Trinitarian God. It is a perfect, sacrificial, joyous, generous love that begs every creature to come join us in the ecstasy of glory.

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God,

It will flame out like shining from shook foil,

It gathers to a greatness like the ooze of oil crushed,

Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod

And all is seared with trade, bleared, smeared with toil

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell.

The soil is bare now; nor can foot feel being shod.

And for all this nature is never spent,

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things,

And though the last lights off the black west went,

O morning at the brown brink eastwards springs

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods

With warm breast and, ah, bright wings.

                        G.M.Hopkins