Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Ba Tuần thứ 7 Phục Sinh

 Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Ba Tuần thứ 7 Phục Sinh

Những lời cầu nguyện của Chúa Giêsu với Thiên Chúa Cha trong bài Tin Mừng hôm nay cho chúng thấy được là: Chúa Giêsu đã cầu nguyện cho tất cả những ai đã, đang và sẽ  theo Ngài.  Trong đêm trước khi Ngài bị bắt, chịu khổ hình và phải chết, Chúa Giêsu đã cầu nguyện, Ngài không hề hối tiếc những việc Ngài đã làm vì vâng phục theo như Thánh Ý Chúa Cha.  Ngài biết là Ngài đã thực hiện những công việc mà Thiên Chúa Cha đã giao phó cho Ngài để làm, và để làm cho mọi người trong thế giới này được nhận biết ra được Thiên Chúa Cha .

            Trong khi Thánh Phaolô đang chuẩn bị rời khỏi thành Êphêsô để được sai đến thành Jerusalem, nơi mà ông biết là ông sẽ phải kết thúc việc rao giảng công khai của ông. Ông ấp ủ không hối tiếc về cuộc sống này. Ông đã sử dụng của tất cả những cơ hội mà Thiên Chúa đã trao cho ông để ông làm sáng danh Chúa Giêsu ở giữa những người dân ngoại. Ông đã hoàn thành tất cả những nhiệm vụ mà Chúa đã trao phó cho ông.

            Qua hai bài đọc, chúng ta thấy có sự khác biệt giữa Chúa Giêsu và thánh Phaolô. Có lẽ như là sự khác biệt giữa các thánh và con người của chúng ta. Chúng ta đã bỏ lỡ những cơ hội Chúa ban cho chúng bằng cách luôn luôn tìm sống với và trong tương lai. "Ngày mai, tôi sẽ nhất định sẽ làm một cái gì đó cho cuộcc sống tâm linh của tôi." "Ngày mai tôi sẽ hòa giải với những người đã làm tổn thương tôi." "Ngày mai tôi sẽ bắt đầu dành nhiều thời giờ hơn cho gia đình tôi…"

            Khi chúng ta già đi, hầu hết chúng ta mới khám phá, nhớ lại và tiếc hối những cơ hội mà chúng ta đã đánh mất.

Một niềm an ủi cho chúng ta là có Chúa Giêsu đã sẵn sàng thông cảm và tha thứ cho sự mệt mỏi của các tông đồ của Ngài, "Tâm thần tuy sẵn sàng, nhưng xác thịt thì yếu nhược". (Mt 26:41) ." Nhưng việc này sẽ là dịp may lớn cho chúng ta, nếu chúng ta biết từ bỏ tất cả mọi thứ vật chất để hướng vào sự hiện diện của một Thiên Chúa luôn rất yêu thương và hiểu biết.

 

REFLECTION
Today's Gospel begins with the prayer Jesus says to his Father for all those who would be his followers. Jesus prays this prayer on the night before he is to die. He has no regrets. He knows he has done the work his Father gave him to do: to make his Father known among the people of his day.

            Paul in the first reading also looks back over his life. He is about to set off from Ephesus for Jerusalem, where he knows will be the beginning of the end for him. He harbors no regrets about this life. He has made use of all the opportunities God had given to him to make the name of Jesus known among the Gentiles. He has fulfilled the mission given him by the Lord.

            The difference between Jesus and Paul is perhaps the difference between the saints and the rest of us. We miss the opportunities the Lord gives us by always living in the future. "Tomorrow I will get down to doing something about my spiritual life." "Tomorrow I will reconcile with those who have hurt me." "Tomorrow I will start giving more time to my family."

            As we get older, most of us discover and recall lost opportunities. The one consolation we have is that it was the Lord Jesus who said, excusing the weariness of his apostles, "The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak." But will it not be unfortunate if we will have to go empty-handed into the presence of so loving and understanding a Lord?

 

Opening Prayer: 

Lord, open my ears and help me hear and understand your words to your disciples. Help me listen to your voice today and be open to what you are asking of me.

Encountering Christ:

·         Communion of Persons: Jesus prayed out loud to his Father, and he gave us a glimpse into the depth of his Father-Son relationship. Jesus, God made flesh, walked on earth, but his heart was never far from his Father in heaven. They were continually united, heart-to-heart and Person-to-Person. Jesus asked his Father to “give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,” and the Son was glorified at the Resurrection. When the disciples received the Holy Spirit (John 20:22), that outpouring of love that existed between the Father and the Son appeared as flames above the heads of the disciples. The communion of person is not only a lofty Trinitarian reality but also one we are called to make manifest in the world. “Man and woman, created as a ‘unity of the two’ in their common humanity, are called to live in a communion of love, and in this way to mirror in the world the communion of love that is in God, through which the Three Persons love each other in the intimate mystery of the one divine life” (Mulieris Dignitatem 7). Marriage and family life are a reflection of the life of the Trinity, and the everyday opportunities that present themselves to do something small for a spouse, son or daughter, or an aging parent are signs of that communion of love.

·         Jesus Conquered the World: Since the fall, human relationships have often been a point of contradiction and division. The “world” that Jesus referred to in the Gospel is not the world God created in the beginning, but the fallen natural world that is subject to concupiscence. The unity that men and women were called to is constantly at risk due to self-seeking and pride. “In the ‘unity of the two.’ man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist ‘side by side’ or ‘together,’ but they are also called to exist mutually ‘one for the other’” (Mulieris Dignitatem 7). The mutual subjection of one to the other out of love for Christ is difficult because we often prefer domination and competition. Christ’s followers are called to live in Christian unity, and not give in to the worldly desire to manipulate one another. We are able to live Christian unity when we rely on the grace of God. 

·         That They May Be One: The first of the four marks of the Church is that she is “One.” But this “oneness” is found in the unity of “the Trinity of Persons…because of her founder …because of her ‘soul’: ‘It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those who believe and pervading and ruling over the entire Church, who brings about that wonderful communion of the faithful and joins them together so intimately in Christ that he is the principle of the Church's unity’" (CCC 813). This communion of persons becomes the reflection of the Trinitarian relationship of God, for “man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion” (General Audience, November 14, 1979, St. John Paul II).

Conversing with Christ: Jesus, I want to discover the unity of your life in the life of my family and my parish community. Give me a sensitivity to your voice alive in the Scriptures and in the community of persons you have put around me. I know you are speaking to me in your word and in my life. 

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will listen to your invitation through the word to reconcile with someone I have been meaning to reach out to with a phone call or email.

 

REFLECTION Epriest daily

1. A Legacy of Prayer: The supreme hour of Jesus has come. As he anticipates his agony of self-giving love to the extreme, Christ has no thought for himself. His heart turns to its one and only love, the one for whose glory he has carried out every act of his earthly existence: his Father. But at the same time, that invincible love for his Father embraces all those whom the Father has entrusted to him. Christ leaves his followers a legacy that will remain their greatest source of confidence throughout the ages: his priestly prayer. In this, Christ teaches us how to pray. Christ prays first that his Father may be glorified by glorifying the Son. What is the supreme glory with which the life of the only Son of God will culminate? The answer is in his bloody immolation upon the cross.

2. The Cross is True Glory: “The word ‘glory’ refers to the splendor, honor and power which belong to God” (The Navarre Bible: St. John, pg. 202). How can Christ’s humiliating death on the cross and his abandonment by his closest followers give honor to God and reveal his splendor and power? How can the cross be Christ’s supreme glory? First, it reveals a love without limits, a love that does not say, “I will go this far and no farther.” Christ’s words, “Father, forgive them,” bear witness to a love that is stronger than sin. The Resurrection, which follows the cross, testifies to a love that is stronger than death itself. Second, the cross is the fulfillment of Christ’s mission. His obedience to the Father, even to death, redeems all of mankind. Have I embraced the cross in my own life as the one way to follow Christ? Embracing the cross is the only sure path to love Christ and glorify the Father.

3. Jesus Continues to Trust in Me: Throughout this Gospel passage, Christ’s words ring with unshakeable confidence. Even though he will die, abandoned by his disciples, in agony and humiliating failure, Christ continues to trust. He trusts both in his Father and in those very disciples who will soon desert him. Our Lord’s trust in us as his followers must inspire within us similar unwavering confidence in our mission to save souls, to bring others to Christ, and to transform society itself. By ourselves, we can achieve nothing. But we have the assurance of Christ’s prayers and the promise of his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will speak in the hearts of all those who Christ calls to bring closer to him. Let us pray often to our great advocate: “Holy Spirit, inspire in me what I should think, what I should say, and what I should leave unsaid, so that I may achieve the good of all my brothers and sisters, fulfill my mission, and make Christ’s kingdom triumph.”

 

Reflection SG.

Jesus has finished speaking to his disciples with words full of encouragement great promises. Now he enters into his passion by praying for his disciples and for all of us who have come to believe in him. There is a nice suggestion that this solemn prayer to his Father is like the Preface of the Mass. With the Preface, we turn to prayer as we enter into the consecration. So, too, after his final teaching, Jesus enters into prayer, which he will continue in a different way in the Garden of Olives as he offers himself to the Father.

`In his prayer, Jesus makes an extraordinary statement referring to his disciples: “It is in them that I have been glorified.”  Judas has already gone out to betray him and in a short while Peter will deny him and all of them except John will desert him at the end. We may well then wonder how Jesus finds that he is glorified in them. Possibly, Jesus is taking all of history, past present and future into his prayer and so into his sacrifice.

   After the Resurrection and Pentecost and through the ages many will glorify God by a holy life or a martyr’s death.