Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

 Lectionary: 289

"This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one's life for one's friends.

'It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities....

In today's readings from Saint Luke's Acts of the Apostles and Saint John's Gospel we hear the above complementary readings. God speaks to us in the Person of Jesus, and God speaks to us through the authority of the Church. The messages are both directive and freeing; they teach us how we must behave toward one another, and assure us of the freedom we should exercise as we do so. 

Predictably, his contemporaries challenged the authority of Jesus to say anything about God. "Who is he to tell us how to live? Does he have an army or police force to make us listen to him? Is he wealthy to buy our favor? Or dangerous to force our respect? Where is he coming from?" 

Understandably, they ask the same questions of the Church: So what if there are a billion people in the world who call themselves Catholic? They are rich and poor, male and female; they speak many different languages. They support democracies and tyrants. Do they all agree on anything? And even if they do, why should I listen to their ethical or moral opinions? I'll decide for myself!

It's easy for us to say, "Well, Jesus comes from God and we should listen to him!" We might add, "He rose from the dead and that proves he's God!" 
Yes, and so where is he? 
Even if we believe your story of his resurrection, how does that give him authority? 

We believe because we have chosen to love the truth, and God in his turn has given us the Spirit of Truth. And God's Holy Spirit has shown us the meaning of the Lord's suffering, death, resurrection, and commissioning. Through the Eucharist we have entered into the very life of Jesus, experiencing his sorrow and helplessness before Death, and his conquest of Death. 

Having seen his willing obedience to the supremacy of death; and by that obedience, its destruction; we have come to believe he is worthy to be our God. We worship the Son of Man because he has won the right to our total love and complete obedience. We sing with the angels, 

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain

to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength,

honor and glory and blessing.” Revelation 5:12

And finally, the world comes to believe in Jesus because they see the willingness of the Church to suffer as he suffered. Our demeanor, which is not overbearing or imposing, suggests the presence of God. God uses us to show the nations his glory, as the Wisdom of Sirach says. In every generation -- and especially since the beginning of the twenty-first century -- the Church has proven our fidelity by the passion and death of our martyrs. Defenseless in their devotion and innocence, many have been killed even as they attended the Mass. They died for believing as we believe. 

Nor should anyone suppose it cannot happen (again) in Europe, North America, or anywhere else. There is no human law, economic or government system that can resist the idiocy of its own government, be it democratic or autocratic. "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the faith." as Tertullian saw so clearly in the second century. 

We pray it will not happen as the United States goes into decline. More importantly, we pray that our witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus will save the world from its destruction.