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.
In today's brief reading from Jesus's farewell speech at the Last Supper, several words of overwhelming importance come at us: love, remain, commandments, joy, friends, slaves, fruit, chose, and "everything I have heard from my father."
The teaching summarizes what the Lord expects of us; it describes who Matthias must become as he takes the place of the traitor Judas Iscariot. It also describes who we must become as we renounce our habitual betrayals and turn to the Lord.
If we ever believed freedom is the right to do anything we please; that is, anything that attracts our curiosity, anything that appeals to our sensual appetites, or anything that satisfies our lust for power -- we hear a firm rebuke in these words. Freedom demands that we remain in his love and love one another. The choice of any other path is the choice to return to one's vomit or wallow like a pig in mud.
Freedom is membership in the Church which is bound to Jesus like a wife to her husband, like a child to their parent. Or, more precisely, like the Son to God the Father. We remain in their love. It is a most mysterious place to Pilate, the Jews, and to the initiate Christian.
Strangers will often wonder where we're coming from and where we expect to go as we make major life decisions. They will suspect our freedom and suggest we have been brainwashed, conned, or enslaved by our loyalty to the Gospel.
And we'll often wonder if our sacrifices are really necessary. We understand the agony in the garden as we make certain difficult choices. The world, the flesh, and the devil will counsel other paths while the Lord quietly guides us in his peace. As the saintly poet Dante wrote,
And his will is our peace; this is the sea
To which is moving onward whatsoever It doth create,
We are drawn to his love, as Saint Augustine said, like iron to a magnet. And as Jesus said, "When I am lifted up I will draw all things to myself."and all that nature makes.“
The Church is widely despised today. I met this frequently as a chaplain in the VA hospital. This contempt is not shown as a flagrant hostility to the Roman Catholic Church with all its charities, churches, and schools. It is rather more subtle, a disdain for every spiritual reliance on, or trust in, others. It might manifest as a love for Jesus which feels neither affection for nor obligation to Christians.
We remain in his love so long as we remain with one another. That may sound more difficult to those who fear a loss of freedom by belonging; but we enjoy a liberty that comes with relying on others not only for their help but also for their reassuring affirmation. On my worst days, my friends, family, and friars tell me I am not such a bad person. In fact, I am loved with all my sins, as I love them with all theirs.
As one of our wittier friars used to say, "What's a little sin among friends?"
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.