Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Năm tuần thứ 5 Phục Sinh

 Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Năm tuần thứ 5 Phục Sinh

“Không phải anh em đã chọn thầy, Nhưng chính thầy đã chọn anh em.”

Sự lựa chọn của chúng ta để đi theo Chúa Kitô rất quan trọng, nhưng điều quan trọng hơn hết là sự lựa chọn mà Chúa hứa và cam kết với chúng ta. Chúa Giêsu yêu thương chúng ta bằng một tình yêu mà chính Ngài đã cam kết, vì vậy mà Ngài đã chấp nhận con đường Thập Giá vì chúng ta. Mặc dầu chúng ta vẫn còn thiếu kém lòng tin, và thiếu sự trung thành với Ngài, nhưng Ngài đã không bao giờ thay đổi tình yêu và sự trung tín của Ngài đối với chúng ta.

Chúng ta được Chúa kêu gọi và chọn để theo Ngài, Ngài đã “xin” chúng ta thực hiện một sự cam kết với Ngài, đó là đáp lại lời mời gọi của Chúa. Ngài đã chọn chúng ta, và chúng ta phải đáp trả lại bằng tất cả tình yêu và cuộc sống của chúng ta. Chúa Giêsu nói với chúng ta là Ngài yêu thương chúng ta, và Ngài cũng “nài xin” chúng ta hãy yêu thương Ngài cũng như yêu thương những người chung quanh.

Chúng ta hãy tạ ơn Chúa hôm nay vì Ngài đã ngỏ lời mời chúng ta đến với Ngài trong tình yêu và trong sự trung tín của Ngài. Chúng ta cũng hãy xin Chúa cho chúng ta những ân sủng để chúng ta có thể thực sự cam kết với Ngài. Xin cho tất cả những gì chúng ta làm, là làm trong hành động của tình yêu, trong lòng biết ơn đối với tình yêu mà Ngài đã luôn tỏ ra cho chúng ta thấy được..

REFLECTION

Jesus makes this very clear in today's Gospel reading when he says: "You did not choose me, it was I who chose you." Our choice to follow Jesus is important, but far more significant is his choice to be committed to us. Jesus loves us with a love that is so committed, so dedicated that it takes him to Calvary for us. Our lack of faithfulness to him never changes his faithful love for us.

The life of St. Mathias, the saint whose feast we celebrate today, also shows us that what matters most is the Lord's commitment to us. In the first reading, Mathias was chosen to be one of the twelve apostles after Jesus' death and resurrection. He was the replacement for Judas who after betraying Jesus committed suicide. The Apostles drew lots and he won. It was not exactly his decision. Mathias knew that he had not decided to be one of the twelve. He had been chosen by Jesus Christ.

We are all called and chosen by the Lord. He asks us to make a commitment to him, but the commitment can only be a response to Jesus' call. He has chosen us, and our whole life is to be a response of love to that call. It is a bit like a wedding proposal. Jesus asks us, invites us and proposes to us. He tells us that he loves us, and he asks that we will love him in return. Let us thank the Lord today for his invitation of love and for being faithful. Let us also ask him for the grace to be really committed to him. May all that we do be an act of love in gratitude for the love that he keeps showering upon us.

Opening Prayer:

Lord Jesus, may I remain in your love and keep your commandments always. Open my heart and pour your love into me. Help me find my true joy in the loving gaze of my Father and my obedient response to his love.

Encountering Christ:

· Trinitarian Love: God’s love is Trinitarian. We receive and experience the Father’s love through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told his disciples: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (John 14:23). The indwelling that comes to live within us is the Holy Spirit. By receiving the love of God, we experience the life of the Holy Trinity within us. How amazing and empowering! Through the sacraments and our obedience to God’s commandments, we have the love of God within us, motivating us, allowing us to shower his love on everyone we encounter. Our relationship with the Holy Trinity is what enables us to keep his commandments and uphold the new and everlasting covenant that God the Father established through Christ his Son.

· Obedience to Love: Jesus tells us clearly that we remain in this Trinitarian love when we keep his commandments. Christ gave his answer to the greatest commandments by unifying the Ten Commandments and perfecting them with love: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40). When we strive to love God above all things and love our neighbor as ourselves, we keep the whole of the teachings of the Old Testament: the law and the prophets. The new law is the law of love, and we are called to be obedient to love. When our love is active, it bears the fruits of love. When we offer works of charity and mercy, we love “not in word or speech but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18). When we go to the sacrament of reconciliation, we show our love for God because we repent from the things that separate us from Christ and affirm our desire to be obedient to God’s commandments and remain in his love.

· Christ’s Joy: Earlier in the Last Supper Discourses, Jesus gave the disciples his peace (John 14:27). In this reading, Jesus gifted them with his joy, so that their joy “might be complete.” The true gift of obedience is Christ’s joy. When we receive the love of God and remain in it by keeping God’s commandments to love him and others, we experience joy. Jesus completes our joy because he “is the goal of human history, the focal point of the longings of history and of civilization, the center of the human race, the joy of every heart, and the answer to all its yearnings'' (Gaudium et Spes 45). St. Paul VI wrote about joyful exchange of the Father and the Son: “Here there is an uncommunicable relationship of love which is identified with his existence as the Son and which is the secret of the life of the Trinity: the Father is seen here as the one, who gives himself to the Son, without reserve and without ceasing, in a burst of joyful generosity, and the Son is seen as he who gives himself in the same way to the Father, in a burst of joyful gratitude, in the Holy Spirit'' (Gaudete in Domino, part III). This joyful burst of generosity and gratitude overflows to us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Mysteriously, we share and experience God’s joy in this way.

Conversing with Christ: My Jesus, the world sees joy so differently than you set out for us here in your word. Your joy wells up from a loving relationship with you and as a consequence of childlike obedience to your will. Help me always seek my joy in you and not look for it in the temporal things of this world. May I always rejoice in your word and submit to your holy will. May I rejoice in you always (Philippians 4:4).

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will keep your commandments and imitate you by offering a work of mercy with a “burst of joyful generosity.”

REFLECTION

To remain in God's love is a twofold process: we are his beloved, and we are called to love others as he loves us. It is crucial that we make an effort to remain in his love. When we are in union with Jesus, all our thoughts, emotions, intentions and actions are directed to him. His love is there, giving us the source of strength we need as we sustain and build relationships with those around us - family, friends, colleagues at work, our community. In psychological developmental stages, there is a stage of crisis between intimacy and isolation. Jesus' call to love is manifest when we are able to nurture healthy, loving relationships. When we are able to draw others (and sometimes even ourselves) out of isolation, out of our loneliness - we see the power of Jesus' love at work.

Oftentimes we have a lot of requirements when it comes to accepting God's love for us and sharing it with others. We would rather stay within the comfort zone of doing the minimum requirements as followers of Christ - loving only when it is easy and convenient to do so. But God's love cannot be contained within the parameters we set around it his love calls us to complete obedience to his will. The obedience that Jesus asks of us is not obedience to worldly rules, but to the Father who is pure, total love. Obedience means following his commandment to love others with our whole heart, mind, soul and self. A love that brings out the best in people, for God's love is perfect.

With Jesus dwelling in us, we, too, must dwell in him. Dwelling in Jesus means that we are steadfast in our promise to walk with him, to journey with him. When we dwell in his love, there is no room for selfishness and pride, but there are wide-open spaces where faith, happiness, harmony, goodness, truth and grace can reside. Our union with him is intimate - we are embraced in his loving arms, we are invited to dance with him, to share in his joy for which we were created and which brings the deepest fulfillment to our lives. "To live in Jesus" is to live in Jesus' love.

Reflection SG. 2016

Yesterday’s gospel gave us one of the most beautiful images that Jesus used to describe the unity and communion between Himself and His disciples friends. Like a vine and its branches, He said. And His Father like the one who tends and cares for vine and branches. In the next verses (today’s reading), He reveals how His love for His friends is just like the way His Father loves Him. It’s an extension of His Father’s love, drawing us all into the life of God Himself. Jesus urges His friends to “abide” (‘live’, ‘remain’) in His love.

And the way to that is by keeping His commandments, just like His own love for the Father is expressed by His doing His Father’s will. But the ‘commandments’ He tells us to keep are not just a list of rules or duties (as people sometimes complain), but to love Him and love each other. It’s as simple as that. So simple that maybe we don’t really believe it, and find it hard to accept the simplicity. We complicate things, asking questions about how to love, and who is my neighbour, and how often do I have to forgive etc.

Jesus told His disciples about His love for them in order to share His love, and especially to share the joy He had in being loved by His Father and in loving us. ‘Joy’ is perhaps the most important word in all this, for love surely implies joy and rejoicing in the one we love and are loved by. There is no joy in merely keeping rules, but Jesus wanted our joy to be complete.

Lord, You are our joy and fulfillment.