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.
Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter 2023
“You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.” John 15:14–15
To some, Jesus’ definition of friendship may, at first glance, seem odd. He says that we are His friends only when we do what He commands us to do. Imagine saying that to one of your best friends. Such a statement would most likely be met with a laugh and dismissal as foolishness. So is true friendship always based on obedience?
Obviously, the expectation that your friends obey you so as to win your friendship is not the basis of any authentic friendship. Jesus is the only one Who can base your friendship upon obedience to His holy will. Why? Because of the nature of what He commands you to do.
Jesus is pure Truth. What He wills is the perfection of love. Therefore, His statement that you are only His friend if you do what He commands you to do teaches that friendship is based on the truth. It’s based on love, goodness, kindness, selfless sacrifice and self-giving. And it is all of these truths that Jesus commands us to do. Therefore, Jesus is essentially telling us that His will alone provides the pathway to the friendship we desire to have with Him.
In regard to your friendship with others, each true friendship can only be based on that which God wills for friends. And, in that sense, you can “command” the will of God for your friendships. This means you are only willing to establish a friendship upon the truth. It means you are only willing to share a relationship based upon selfless, sacrificial, self-giving mercy, compassion, honesty and love.
Reflect, today, upon your understanding of friendship. Begin with your friendship with God, but then also ponder your friendship with others. Do you love our Lord in the way that He commands? And as you ponder your friendship with others, examine whether or not each friendship also conforms to obedience to the will of God. If you can love God and others in conformity with the dictates of true love, then your friendships will produce an eternity of deep fulfillment.
My divine Lord, You call me to a friendship with You based only on the dictates of pure and holy love. I thank You for this command of love and accept this invitation. Help me, Lord, to continually deepen my friendship with You in accord with the truths of love and help me to base all my friendships only on the commands of this holy love. Jesus, I trust in You.
Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter 2023
Opening Prayer: God my Father, I ask in your name for the grace to be able to pray. I do not know how to pray as I ought, but the Spirit in me inspires true prayer. I love you, Father mine, and I love your Son; let me remain in your love.
2. Appointed to Bear Fruit: Christ has chosen us to go out and bear fruit, and this means laying down our lives—suffering. “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24). The seed which forgets itself will bear the type of fruit that remains. “Those who sow in tears will reap with cries of joy” (Psalms 126:5). Our suffering is not useless; it is the source of a mysterious fruitfulness. The other component of fruit-bearing is “going out.” The apostles did not remain enclosed in the Upper Room when the Last Supper ended. In fact, the book following John’s Gospel is the Acts of the Apostles. These men were chosen by Christ to bear witness to his Resurrection–amidst much suffering–and thereby bear fruit.
3. Love One Another: Christ does not monopolize us. His love for us and our love for him is not to be exclusive but rather the fount of love for our brothers and sisters. Fr. Alban Goodier, SJ, in his book The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, makes explicit that just before Christ died, it weighed heavily on his heart that the apostles should truly love one another. That’s why he commanded them to wash each other’s feet. His own sacrificial love for them would be the standard of their love for one other: “Love one another as I have loved you.” With every ounce of his capacity for expression, he sought to show them that night “all he would have them to be to one another” (Goodier).
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, I do not want to skim over love but to be inundated and saturated with it. Let my love be as practical and concrete as it is deep and spiritual. Grant me the gift of loving others as you love me.
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.
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.
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.
“You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.” John 15:14–15
To some, Jesus’ definition of friendship may, at first glance, seem odd. He says that we are His friends only when we do what He commands us to do. Imagine saying that to one of your best friends. Such a statement would most likely be met with a laugh and dismissal as foolishness. So is true friendship always based on obedience?
Obviously, the expectation that your friends obey you so as to win your friendship is not the basis of any authentic friendship. Jesus is the only one Who can base your friendship upon obedience to His holy will. Why? Because of the nature of what He commands you to do.
Jesus is pure Truth. What He wills is the perfection of love. Therefore, His statement that you are only His friend if you do what He commands you to do teaches that friendship is based on the truth. It’s based on love, goodness, kindness, selfless sacrifice and self-giving. And it is all of these truths that Jesus commands us to do. Therefore, Jesus is essentially telling us that His will alone provides the pathway to the friendship we desire to have with Him.
In regard to your friendship with others, each true friendship can only be based on that which God wills for friends. And, in that sense, you can “command” the will of God for your friendships. This means you are only willing to establish a friendship upon the truth. It means you are only willing to share a relationship based upon selfless, sacrificial, self-giving mercy, compassion, honesty and love.
Reflect, today, upon your understanding of friendship. Begin with your friendship with God, but then also ponder your friendship with others. Do you love our Lord in the way that He commands? And as you ponder your friendship with others, examine whether or not each friendship also conforms to obedience to the will of God. If you can love God and others in conformity with the dictates of true love, then your friendships will produce an eternity of deep fulfillment.
My divine Lord, You call me to a friendship with You based only on the dictates of pure and holy love. I thank You for this command of love and accept this invitation. Help me, Lord, to continually deepen my friendship with You in accord with the truths of love and help me to base all my friendships only on the commands of this holy love. Jesus, I trust in You.
Opening Prayer: God my Father, I ask in your name for the grace to be able to pray. I do not know how to pray as I ought, but the Spirit in me inspires true prayer. I love you, Father mine, and I love your Son; let me remain in your love.
2. Appointed to Bear Fruit: Christ has chosen us to go out and bear fruit, and this means laying down our lives—suffering. “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24). The seed which forgets itself will bear the type of fruit that remains. “Those who sow in tears will reap with cries of joy” (Psalms 126:5). Our suffering is not useless; it is the source of a mysterious fruitfulness. The other component of fruit-bearing is “going out.” The apostles did not remain enclosed in the Upper Room when the Last Supper ended. In fact, the book following John’s Gospel is the Acts of the Apostles. These men were chosen by Christ to bear witness to his Resurrection–amidst much suffering–and thereby bear fruit.
3. Love One Another: Christ does not monopolize us. His love for us and our love for him is not to be exclusive but rather the fount of love for our brothers and sisters. Fr. Alban Goodier, SJ, in his book The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, makes explicit that just before Christ died, it weighed heavily on his heart that the apostles should truly love one another. That’s why he commanded them to wash each other’s feet. His own sacrificial love for them would be the standard of their love for one other: “Love one another as I have loved you.” With every ounce of his capacity for expression, he sought to show them that night “all he would have them to be to one another” (Goodier).
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, I do not want to skim over love but to be inundated and saturated with it. Let my love be as practical and concrete as it is deep and spiritual. Grant me the gift of loving others as you love me.
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.
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