Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ 6 Tuần thứ 5 Phục Sinh

 Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ 6 Tuần thứ 5 Phục Sinh

Qua bài Tin Mừng hôm nay, chúng ta có thể tóm lại trong bốn sự quan sát có giá trị trong luật yêu thương Chúa Giêsu muốn dạy chúng ta;

- Thứ nhất, sự yêu thương mà chúng ta nói ở đây, không phải là sự yêu thương về cảm giác. Tình yêu đòi hỏi một mối quan hệ mà đi vượt ra ngoài lĩnh vực của cảm giác và xúc cảm. Một người thực sự yêu ai đó sẽ cố gắng mang lại những gì tốt đẹp nhất mà họ có thể dâng hiến và sẵn sàng hy sinh tất cả mọi thứ họ có cho người mà họ yêu. Chúa Giêsu đã hy sinh mạng sống của Ngài cho chúng ta để chúng ta có được sự sống đời đời với Chúa Cha.

Đôi khi, chúng ta có thể quên mình cho người khác như Chúa Giêsu, Chúa không cần đòi hỏi gì nhiều nơi chúng ta, mà chỉ cần chúng ta biết giúp đỡ người khác, chẳng hạn như người khuyết tật, biết dành thời giờ thăm các bệnh nhân, hay là giúp cho một người đang đau khổ tìm được sự an ủi và bình an.’

- Thứ hai, Chúa Giêsu đang muốn làm bạn với chúng ta trong mối tình thân thiết, nhưng điều kiện cho tình bạn với Ngài không phải là một mối quan hệ bình thường. Nhưng nó đòi hỏi chúng ta phải biết trung thành và vâng lời. Chúng ta chắc chắn không có thể yêu được người khác, nếu chúng ta không biết đầu hàng cái ý chí của chúng ta, hay biết hy sinh từ bỏ những ham muốn, những cái tôi của mình để làm vừa lòng người mình yêu.

- Thứ ba, Chúa Giêsu chấp nhận chúng ta như những người bạn của Ngài, mà không coi chúng ta như là tôi tớ, của Ngài. Người tôi tớ bắt buộc phải làm những gì khi ông chủ ra lệnh. Tuy nhiên, là bạn bè của Chúa Giêsu, chúng ta được tự do, được chia sẻ sự tin tưởng và tình cảm với Ngài. Khi chúng ta trở thành bạn của Chúa Giêsu, chúng ta sẽ trải nghiệm được cái nhìn sâu sắc vào Thánh Kinh. Chúng ta sẽ nghe Lời của Thiên Chúa một cách rõ ràng hơn. Những suy nghĩ của chúng ta sẽ trở nên giống như suy nghĩ của Chúa. Chúng ta sẽ thực thi mục đích của Chúa trên trái đất này cũng như ở trên trời.

- Thứ tư, Chúa Giêsu muốn chúng ta yêu thương nhau như Ngài yêu thương chúng ta, hết lòng và không có sự do dự. Tình yêu của Ngài tràn ngập trong lòng chúng ta và sẽ biến đổi tâm trí và giải phóng chúng ta để chúng ta có thể phục vụ cho người khác. Nếu chúng ta biết mở rộng tâm hồn của mình cho tình yêu của Thìên Chúa và biết tuân theo mệnh lệnh của Ngài, chúng ta dễ dàng yêu thương những người chung quanh của chúng ta. Và nhờ đó chúng ta sẽ sinh nhiều hoa trái trong cuộc sống của chúng ta, những hoa quả đó sẽ trường tồn mãi mãi.

Trong mùa Phục Sinh này, chúng ta hãy phát triển tình bằng hữu của chúng ta với Chúa Giêsu, trong Chúa Kitô bắt đầu là sự sơ giao, giản dị và từ từ sẽ đưa đến sự thân mật để chúng ta có thể trở nên giống như Chúa Giêsu biết sẵn sàng đêm tình yêu ấy cho những người khác, và luôn mong muốn có một kết quả tốt đẹp đó là làm đẹp lòng Cha, Đấng hay yêu thương chúng ta.

Reflection:

There are four observations worth noting in this commandment of love:

First, love we are told here, isn't about feeling. Love entails a relationship which goes beyond the realm of feelings and emotions. Though emotions are involved, at its heart, love is a decision to seek the good of others. Loving as Jesus does means offering what is the most loving thing you can do for a particular person in a particular moment. A true lover gives the best he can offer and is willing to sacrifice everything he has for the beloved. Jesus gave his very life for us so that we have everlasting life with the Father. Sometimes, laying down our lives as Jesus does entails nothing more than to help someone who is handicapped, to take the time to visit the sick, or to offer comfort to someone who is in grief.

Second, Jesus is seeking intimate friendship with us, but He gives condition for his friendship. Friendship with Jesus is not a casual relationship. It demands "abiding," being loyal and obedient. We just can't love another without some surrender of our will.

Third, Jesus is accepting us as his friends, not as his slaves. A slave is expected to do what his master instructs him to do, whether or not he likes it, and whether or not he understands why he is commanded to do it. But as Jesus' friends, we share a mutual trust and affection with him. As we become Jesus' friends, he will disclose his plans and purposes to us. He will share his thinking, his goals, and his motivations for doing things. We will come to know his heart and mind. We will experience a greater degree of insight into the Scriptures. We will hear the voice of God more clearly. Our thoughts will become more like his thoughts. We will carry out his purposes on earth as they are in heaven.

Fourth, Jesus wants us to love one another just as he loves us, whole-heartedly and without reserve. His love fills our hearts and transforms our minds and frees us to give ourselves in loving service to others. If we open our hearts to his love and obey his command to love our neighbor, then we will bear much fruit in our lives, fruit that will last for eternity.

During this Easter season, let us develop our friendship with Jesus, from casual to intimate so that we may become like Jesus willing to be put out for others, desirous to bear fruit that is pleasing to our loving Father.

Opening Prayer: 

Jesus, thank you for calling me your friend and sharing all that the Father has told you. Bless me as I hear your word and help it strengthen me in my mission as your disciple and friend.

Encountering Christ:

1. Gift of Love: What greater love could there be than to give the gift of yourself, your very life, for someone you love? No words, no romantic gestures, no gifts of gold could compare. Life is precious, and giving your life for another is equally as precious. St. Thomas Aquinas said that “To love is to will the good of the other.” Christ gave his life for us in the ultimate act of self-giving love. We are called to imitate Christ in his gift of salvific love. God created our hearts to be oriented to loving in this way, for we are most fulfilled when we lovingly give ourselves to others. St. Paul VI wrote: “man...cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes 24). We imitate Christ when we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, living by what St. John Paul the Great called the “law of the gift.” He said, “We become most truly human in the measure in which we go out of ourselves and give ourselves for the sake of others…” What a paradox: to find life, one must give it up as a sacrifice. We find the true meaning and joy in our lives precisely to the degree that we give our lives away to God and others. This is Jesus’s command to us as his disciples: to love one another.

2. Chosen: Christ has chosen you to be his cherished possession, his beloved. He chose each one of us, not the other way around. Of course, we have free will and choose for ourselves how to respond to God’s love. But he called and loved us first. God the Father chose us through Christ his Son as part of his plan for salvation: “...he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:4-6). We were each chosen for a specific vocation and mission. We can trust that because God called us to our missions that he will provide the spiritual and material gifts that we need to fulfill our missions. God will not leave us orphans (cf. John 14:18)—he is our Father! He will give us every good thing we need along the way if we only pray and ask him (cf. Matthew 7:11). We can trust that he will save and glorify us when he calls us home: “And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30).

3. Fruitfulness: God chose us to bear fruit that will remain. St. Paul defines the fruits of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22). These are all fruits that will remain. The Catechism teaches that these virtues are “perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory” (CCC 1832). We can bear the fruit of God’s love into the world through acts of love, mercy, and virtuousness. Many people would say that fruitfulness is about productivity, or how much you get done in a day. The world’s idea of a fruitful day might look like a task list that is fully checked off, all emails answered, and future projects planned for maximum efficiency. These are not bad things, but these acts will not remain. They are all temporal—the task list never ends; the email fills up the minute you answer your last one; projects come and go. God’s idea of a fruitful day full of loving acts and virtuousness might actually look unproductive. Think of the parent of a young child who needs to have his or her needs met all day long. Is the loving parent who cares for the child all day very productive, getting lots of things marked off the to-do list? Probably not. But is that parent being fruitful in God’s eyes: lovingly feeding, bathing, dressing, playing, rocking, singing, teaching, and soothing his or her child? Absolutely. All works can be fruitful if done with the intention of making them acts of self-giving love. Jesus tells us that a person can be known by the fruits that they bear: “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:20). We can ask ourselves if we are truly bearing good fruit for Christ’s name.

Conversing with Christ: Jesus, thank you for calling me to yourself. Thank you for equipping me with everything I need to serve and love you and others. Thank you for saving me and purchasing me with your own precious Body and Blood. Help me to be fruitful in all that I do by offering all my prayers, works, joys, and suffering in union with your own sacrifice of love. Help me to bear fruit that will remain for your glory alone.

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will examine my day and consider how I will bear fruit that will remain.

Reflection

In today’s Gospel Jesus speaks loud and clear to us. He is asking disciples to love all those around them as a sign of their love for him. He also warns them that there is no guarantee that they will be loved in return. If they hated such a loving person as Jesus so bitterly, his disciples cannot expect to be treated differently. The reason they will be hated is that they will refuse to identify themselves with the values and priorities of the secular world.

The disciples are included in the world’s hatred of Jesus because, like him, they are not of this world. They are Jesus’ friends and thus they are not loved by the world. Jesus calls on us today to reject materialistic greed and competiveness, the scramble for status and power, the hatred, anger, violence and revenge which mark so many lives. We should all be ready to accept humiliation for Christ.

Jesus was ridiculed, ignored, humiliated, and persecuted for the message he brought to the world. If it happened to our Lord, it will surely happen to us, his followers. Therefore, we should be strong in faith and ready to face challenges for Christ.