Fifth Sunday of Easter

Lectionary: 54

As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”

When I came out of the seminary to enter parish life, I was surprised to discover communities of affection who made our seminary groups pale by comparison. We had been together as classmates and friends for many years; in some cases more than half our lives. Yet here were Catholics who had known each other for generations. 

Parishioners told me, "My grandfather dated his grandmother." "Our children grew up together." "My mother nursed his daughter at the hospital." 

If it's true in America that "Everyone moves every five years" -- a statement that reflects statistics of relocation -- it's also true that most people live within twenty-five miles of where they grew up. 

There is a certain class of people who move often, pursuing their careers in business, the military or education. But many people live in the same homes where they were born. Many people have known their neighbors since early childhood. 

In the five parishes where I have lived -- two in Ohio, one in Wisconsin, one in Australia and one in Louisiana -- I always found people who could tell me about every family tree, and about all the brushes, bushes and vines that bound them together. I soon learned to "Say nothing about no one because they're all related." 

When Jesus commands us to "Love one another!" he speaks to people who know each other well. These are people who live, work, play, pray and (often) sin together. They are people who carry grudges and remember feuds for generations. 

As a pastor I soon realized there were problems in this church that were older than my ministry and would probably persist long after I left. "Lord," I prayed, "you have problems here! And you will have to work them out!" 

But more often I was grateful to find affections that run deep in the Catholic parish. A spirituality of individualism declares everyone lives and dies alone. It supposes that "me and Jesus have something special between us." But it overlooks the mesh of relationships that binds us together as human beings. We need one another because no one lives alone.  We are saved as a church, or not at all.