Suy
Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Năm Tuần thứ 4 Phục Sinh
Mùa Phục Sinh là
mùa mang lại cho chúng ta một thông điệp của
hy vọng trong sự
sống lại với Chúa Kitô trong cuộc sống mới. Trong bài Tin Mừng, Chúa Kitô cho chúng ta biết rằng bất cứ ai tiếp
đón một trong những người Ngài gởi đến là tiếp nhận Ngài. Và bất cứ ai tiếp nhận Chúa Kitô là
tiếp nhận Chúa Cha, Ngưòi đã sai Chúa Giêsu Kitô đến.
Qua phép rửa tất cả chúng ta được Chúa Kitô giao nhiệm vụ và sai đi để tham gia với Ngài trong nhiệm vụ rao truyền Tin Mừng của Ngài đến với mọi người. Mỗi người chúng ta được kêu gọi nên thánh; chúng ta có nhiệm vụ phải thay đổi lối sống của chúng ta cho tốt hơn, để được sống lại với Chúa Kitô trong cuộc sống mới, để trở nên những chứng nhân tình yêu của Ngài và là niềm hy vọng trong sự sống lại và sự chiến thắng của Ngài.
Chúa Giêsu đã bảo đảm với chúng ta rằng Ngài sẽ ở lại với chúng ta cũng như Ngài đã sai chúng ta đến để làm chứng cho Ngài, Ngài hứa với chúng ta là Ngài sẽ ban ân sủng của Ngài cho chúng ta và sẽ hỗ trợ chúng ta trong việc chia sẻ Tin Mừng tuyệt vời của Ngài cho tất cả mọi người được biết là Chúa Giêsu Kitô đã sống lại, và Thiên Chúa đã yêu thương chúng ta. Chúng ta hãy tin tưởng vào Ngài trong những lời kêu gọi và và hợp tác với Ngài sứ mạng tuyệt vời này.
Reflection
Thursday 4th of Easter 2016
The season of Easter gives us the message of hope in rising to new life with Christ. In the Gospel reading, Christ tells us that whoever receives the one he has sent receives him. And whoever received Christ receives the Father who has sent him.
In baptism all of us are commissioned and sent by Christ to join him in his mission. We are called to holiness; we are tasked to change for the better, to rise to new life with Christ, to become witnesses of his love and of hope in his resurrection and triumph.
Jesus' words assures that he will be with us as he send us to be his witnesses, He assures us of his grace and assistance to share the wonderful news that Christ has risen, that God loves us. Let us trust him in this wonderful call and mission.
Thursday
4th week of Easter 2023
When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.” John 13:16–17
During this, the Fourth Week of Easter, we return to the Last Supper and will spend a few weeks considering the discourse Jesus gave that Holy Thursday evening to His disciples. The question to ask yourself today is this: “Are you blessed?” Jesus says that you are blessed if you “understand” and “do” what He teaches His disciples. So what did He teach them?
Jesus offers this prophetic action by which He took on the role of a slave by washing the disciples’ feet. His action was much louder than words, as the saying goes. The disciples were humbled by this act, and Peter, at first, refused it. There is little doubt that this humble act of service, by which Jesus lowered Himself before His disciples, made a strong impression upon them.
The worldly view of greatness is much different than the one Jesus taught. Worldly greatness is a process of elevating yourself in the eyes of others, striving to let them know just how good you are. Worldly greatness is often driven by a fear of what others may think of you, and a desire to be honored by all. But Jesus wants to be clear that we will only be great if we serve. We must humble ourselves before others, holding them and their goodness up, honoring them and showing them the deepest love and respect. By washing their feet, Jesus completely abandoned the worldly view of greatness and called His disciples to do the same.
Humility is difficult to understand at times. This is why Jesus said, “If you understand this…” He realized that the disciples, as well as all of us, will struggle with understanding the importance of humbling ourselves before others and serving them. But if you do understand humility, you will be “blessed” when you live it. You will not be blessed in the eyes of the world, but you will be truly blessed in the eyes of God.
Humility is especially accomplished when we purify our desire for honor and prestige, when we overcome all fear of being mistreated, and when, in place of this desire and fear, we desire abundant blessings upon others, even before ourselves. This love and humility is the only way to this mysterious and profound depth of love.
Reflect, today, upon this humble act of the Son of God, the Savior of the World, lowering Himself before His disciples, serving them as if He were a slave. Try to imagine yourself doing this for others. Think about various ways that you can more readily go out of your way to put others and their needs before your own. Seek to eliminate every selfish desire you struggle with and identify any fear that keeps you from humility. Understand this gift of humility and live it. Only then will you be truly blessed.
My humble Lord, You set for us the perfect example of love when You chose to serve Your disciples with great humility. Help me to understand this beautiful virtue and to live it. Free me from all selfishness and fear so that I may love others as You have loved us all. Jesus, I trust in You.
Thursday
4th week of Easter 2022
Opening Prayer: Dear Jesus, I long for a personal experience of your love that fills my heart with joy and gives meaning to my spiritual life. I approach you today to know what is in your heart and to please you.
2. To Be a Good Person or a Holy Person: Many people say, “I’m a good person” and conclude that is enough. To be a holy person, they say, is boring or stuffy. On the contrary, a holy person is a joy-filled person, one whose company everyone enjoys, who has found meaning that moves him or her beyond being “good” to being “great.” The world needs these holy souls–people who live according to Gospel standards, who have embraced Christ’s teachings in their hearts, and show true unconditional love to all those they encounter.
3. Going Beyond What Is Required: Embracing Christ’s message from the heart is essential for moving beyond merely external participation in Sunday Mass or keeping the commandments to a more profound way of living. True love wants to please the other, do what he or she enjoys, and make the other happy. Likewise, being a great lover of God implies going beyond fulfilling the commandments to pleasing the Lord in all that he asks of us, grateful for the love he gives.
Conversing with Christ: May I renew my love for you, Lord, in a special way today, so it does not grow stale and moves me outside my comfort zone, from goodness to greatness (holiness).
Thursday
4th week of Easter 2022
Opening Prayer: Lord, you taught the Apostles to pray, and they were unstoppable in their mission as your messengers. Help me to pray well now, so I can hear your words of encouragement and be sent out to help my wounded brothers and sisters.
Christ’s Messengers: Jesus sent out the Apostles; in fact, that is what the word “Apostle” means—someone who is sent out, a messenger. They had been given a message uniquely their own; no one else could duplicate it. They had been with Jesus during his life. Although most of them ran away, they were nearby when he died. They were witnesses of the empty tomb and then saw him risen from the dead. They were witnesses to the Resurrection. As his first-hand witnesses, the Apostles were sent out by Jesus to spread the Good News—that Jesus had risen from the dead and that through his death and Resurrection we are all saved from sin. Later, St. Paul was also called an Apostle because he saw the Risen Lord while on his way to Damascus.
Thursday
4th of Easter SG 2016
When the Israelites talked about their faith, they always told a story; the story of God’s continual kindness and mercy. Even when Paul talked about Jesus, he placed Jesus in the story that stretched so far back in history. Jesus was the latest and best of God’s gracious gifts. Perhaps when we speak of our faith, we too can relate the many kindnesses and mercies we have been shown. We are part of God’s story, and that story continues until the end of time. This will also help us to grow in gratitude, as our eyes and hearts are opened to a world filled with God’s grace and love.
Jesus made it very clear that if we want to be his disciples, we have to follow his path. In the washing of the feet, he showed that the path was one of humble and loving service. There are no shortcuts. When he sends us on mission, he wants those who encounter us to encounter him through our loving service. We are to be stand-ins or representatives of Jesus — genuine ones, not just fancy words. There is nothing more distressing than one who claims to be a Christian but drives others away through selfishness, unkindness, and cruelty. May Christ always shine through us. Lord, make me a channel of Your mercy and love.
Thursday 4th of Easter
Today, as with those movies that, at the beginning, take us back in time, our liturgy remembers a passage that belongs to the Holy Thursday: Jesus washes the feet of his disciples (cf. Jn 13:12). Thus, this gesture; read from the Easter perspective recovers a perennial validity. Let us consider only three ideas.
In the first place, the centrality of the person. In our society it seems that to do is the thermometer to measure a person's worth. Within this dynamic it is easy for people to be considered as tools; we use each other extremely easy. Today, the Gospel urges us to transform this dynamic into service dynamics: the other party will never be just a tool. It would rather be a matter of living a spirituality of communion, where the other one quoting John Paul II; becomes “someone that belongs to me” and a “gift to me”, whom we have “to give room” to. In our language we could translate it as “to care about other people's feelings”. Do we care about other people's feelings? Do we listen to them when they speak to us?
In our world of image and communications, this is not a message to transmit, but a job to be done, to live up to every day: «and blessed are you if you put it into practice! » (Jn 13:17). Maybe, this is why the Master does not limit himself to an explanation: He imprints into his disciples' memory his gesture of service, to pass it immediately on to the Church's memory; a memory that we demand to become a gesture, time and again: in the lives of so many families, of so many people.
Finally, a warning signal: «The one who shared my table has risen against me» (Jn 13:18). In the Eucharist, Jesus resurrected becomes our servant, He washes our feet. But the physical presence is not enough. We have to learn in the Eucharist and get the necessary strength from so that it may become a reality that «having received the gift of love, we die to sin and we live for God» (Saint Fulgence, Bishop of Ruspe).
Meditation: John 13:16-20
“What Is God’s Will For My Life?” We tend to ask this question in capital letters, as we wonder about God’s grand plan for our careers, our state in life, and our life’s purpose. Of course, these are very important questions. God wants to help us discover his path for us and the impact we can have on his creation.
However, these are not choices that we make day in, day out. We simply take the small step that lies in front of us that day and do it with love. Most of the time, we understand what that step is: “I am supposed to do the laundry, pick up my child from school, or review the end-of-day report at work. I will come to understand other tasks as the day unfolds.” The key question is whether we do each of these things with love for the Lord and love for the person in front of us.
In her book The Ear of the Heart, actress-turned-religious-sister Dolores Hart recounts a conversation with a nun who founded a monastery in the United States after her French convent had been liberated from the Nazis. Explaining what the beginning of that work was like, she said, “The secret to keeping this place going was to do the next thing that had to be done—without wasting time worrying.” Using a construction analogy, she went on to say, “It’s a continuous process of sawing to build and at the same time trying to dispose of the sawdust.”
We seldom have the big picture at the beginning. Instead, God shows us one small step. Then, as we faithfully do our best with this, we come to understand him and his larger plan a little better. It’s like an upward spiral in which each step of obedience opens up new vistas and new opportunities for us to work with God and build his kingdom. It may take many steps before we have any inkling of what we are building, but the results become more and more spectacular over time.
“Lord, thank you for inviting me to build with you. Help me today to take the step in front of me, empowered by your love.”
Qua phép rửa tất cả chúng ta được Chúa Kitô giao nhiệm vụ và sai đi để tham gia với Ngài trong nhiệm vụ rao truyền Tin Mừng của Ngài đến với mọi người. Mỗi người chúng ta được kêu gọi nên thánh; chúng ta có nhiệm vụ phải thay đổi lối sống của chúng ta cho tốt hơn, để được sống lại với Chúa Kitô trong cuộc sống mới, để trở nên những chứng nhân tình yêu của Ngài và là niềm hy vọng trong sự sống lại và sự chiến thắng của Ngài.
Chúa Giêsu đã bảo đảm với chúng ta rằng Ngài sẽ ở lại với chúng ta cũng như Ngài đã sai chúng ta đến để làm chứng cho Ngài, Ngài hứa với chúng ta là Ngài sẽ ban ân sủng của Ngài cho chúng ta và sẽ hỗ trợ chúng ta trong việc chia sẻ Tin Mừng tuyệt vời của Ngài cho tất cả mọi người được biết là Chúa Giêsu Kitô đã sống lại, và Thiên Chúa đã yêu thương chúng ta. Chúng ta hãy tin tưởng vào Ngài trong những lời kêu gọi và và hợp tác với Ngài sứ mạng tuyệt vời này.
The season of Easter gives us the message of hope in rising to new life with Christ. In the Gospel reading, Christ tells us that whoever receives the one he has sent receives him. And whoever received Christ receives the Father who has sent him.
In baptism all of us are commissioned and sent by Christ to join him in his mission. We are called to holiness; we are tasked to change for the better, to rise to new life with Christ, to become witnesses of his love and of hope in his resurrection and triumph.
Jesus' words assures that he will be with us as he send us to be his witnesses, He assures us of his grace and assistance to share the wonderful news that Christ has risen, that God loves us. Let us trust him in this wonderful call and mission.
When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.” John 13:16–17
During this, the Fourth Week of Easter, we return to the Last Supper and will spend a few weeks considering the discourse Jesus gave that Holy Thursday evening to His disciples. The question to ask yourself today is this: “Are you blessed?” Jesus says that you are blessed if you “understand” and “do” what He teaches His disciples. So what did He teach them?
Jesus offers this prophetic action by which He took on the role of a slave by washing the disciples’ feet. His action was much louder than words, as the saying goes. The disciples were humbled by this act, and Peter, at first, refused it. There is little doubt that this humble act of service, by which Jesus lowered Himself before His disciples, made a strong impression upon them.
The worldly view of greatness is much different than the one Jesus taught. Worldly greatness is a process of elevating yourself in the eyes of others, striving to let them know just how good you are. Worldly greatness is often driven by a fear of what others may think of you, and a desire to be honored by all. But Jesus wants to be clear that we will only be great if we serve. We must humble ourselves before others, holding them and their goodness up, honoring them and showing them the deepest love and respect. By washing their feet, Jesus completely abandoned the worldly view of greatness and called His disciples to do the same.
Humility is difficult to understand at times. This is why Jesus said, “If you understand this…” He realized that the disciples, as well as all of us, will struggle with understanding the importance of humbling ourselves before others and serving them. But if you do understand humility, you will be “blessed” when you live it. You will not be blessed in the eyes of the world, but you will be truly blessed in the eyes of God.
Humility is especially accomplished when we purify our desire for honor and prestige, when we overcome all fear of being mistreated, and when, in place of this desire and fear, we desire abundant blessings upon others, even before ourselves. This love and humility is the only way to this mysterious and profound depth of love.
Reflect, today, upon this humble act of the Son of God, the Savior of the World, lowering Himself before His disciples, serving them as if He were a slave. Try to imagine yourself doing this for others. Think about various ways that you can more readily go out of your way to put others and their needs before your own. Seek to eliminate every selfish desire you struggle with and identify any fear that keeps you from humility. Understand this gift of humility and live it. Only then will you be truly blessed.
My humble Lord, You set for us the perfect example of love when You chose to serve Your disciples with great humility. Help me to understand this beautiful virtue and to live it. Free me from all selfishness and fear so that I may love others as You have loved us all. Jesus, I trust in You.
Opening Prayer: Dear Jesus, I long for a personal experience of your love that fills my heart with joy and gives meaning to my spiritual life. I approach you today to know what is in your heart and to please you.
2. To Be a Good Person or a Holy Person: Many people say, “I’m a good person” and conclude that is enough. To be a holy person, they say, is boring or stuffy. On the contrary, a holy person is a joy-filled person, one whose company everyone enjoys, who has found meaning that moves him or her beyond being “good” to being “great.” The world needs these holy souls–people who live according to Gospel standards, who have embraced Christ’s teachings in their hearts, and show true unconditional love to all those they encounter.
3. Going Beyond What Is Required: Embracing Christ’s message from the heart is essential for moving beyond merely external participation in Sunday Mass or keeping the commandments to a more profound way of living. True love wants to please the other, do what he or she enjoys, and make the other happy. Likewise, being a great lover of God implies going beyond fulfilling the commandments to pleasing the Lord in all that he asks of us, grateful for the love he gives.
Conversing with Christ: May I renew my love for you, Lord, in a special way today, so it does not grow stale and moves me outside my comfort zone, from goodness to greatness (holiness).
Opening Prayer: Lord, you taught the Apostles to pray, and they were unstoppable in their mission as your messengers. Help me to pray well now, so I can hear your words of encouragement and be sent out to help my wounded brothers and sisters.
Christ’s Messengers: Jesus sent out the Apostles; in fact, that is what the word “Apostle” means—someone who is sent out, a messenger. They had been given a message uniquely their own; no one else could duplicate it. They had been with Jesus during his life. Although most of them ran away, they were nearby when he died. They were witnesses of the empty tomb and then saw him risen from the dead. They were witnesses to the Resurrection. As his first-hand witnesses, the Apostles were sent out by Jesus to spread the Good News—that Jesus had risen from the dead and that through his death and Resurrection we are all saved from sin. Later, St. Paul was also called an Apostle because he saw the Risen Lord while on his way to Damascus.
When the Israelites talked about their faith, they always told a story; the story of God’s continual kindness and mercy. Even when Paul talked about Jesus, he placed Jesus in the story that stretched so far back in history. Jesus was the latest and best of God’s gracious gifts. Perhaps when we speak of our faith, we too can relate the many kindnesses and mercies we have been shown. We are part of God’s story, and that story continues until the end of time. This will also help us to grow in gratitude, as our eyes and hearts are opened to a world filled with God’s grace and love.
Jesus made it very clear that if we want to be his disciples, we have to follow his path. In the washing of the feet, he showed that the path was one of humble and loving service. There are no shortcuts. When he sends us on mission, he wants those who encounter us to encounter him through our loving service. We are to be stand-ins or representatives of Jesus — genuine ones, not just fancy words. There is nothing more distressing than one who claims to be a Christian but drives others away through selfishness, unkindness, and cruelty. May Christ always shine through us. Lord, make me a channel of Your mercy and love.
Today, as with those movies that, at the beginning, take us back in time, our liturgy remembers a passage that belongs to the Holy Thursday: Jesus washes the feet of his disciples (cf. Jn 13:12). Thus, this gesture; read from the Easter perspective recovers a perennial validity. Let us consider only three ideas.
In the first place, the centrality of the person. In our society it seems that to do is the thermometer to measure a person's worth. Within this dynamic it is easy for people to be considered as tools; we use each other extremely easy. Today, the Gospel urges us to transform this dynamic into service dynamics: the other party will never be just a tool. It would rather be a matter of living a spirituality of communion, where the other one quoting John Paul II; becomes “someone that belongs to me” and a “gift to me”, whom we have “to give room” to. In our language we could translate it as “to care about other people's feelings”. Do we care about other people's feelings? Do we listen to them when they speak to us?
In our world of image and communications, this is not a message to transmit, but a job to be done, to live up to every day: «and blessed are you if you put it into practice! » (Jn 13:17). Maybe, this is why the Master does not limit himself to an explanation: He imprints into his disciples' memory his gesture of service, to pass it immediately on to the Church's memory; a memory that we demand to become a gesture, time and again: in the lives of so many families, of so many people.
Finally, a warning signal: «The one who shared my table has risen against me» (Jn 13:18). In the Eucharist, Jesus resurrected becomes our servant, He washes our feet. But the physical presence is not enough. We have to learn in the Eucharist and get the necessary strength from so that it may become a reality that «having received the gift of love, we die to sin and we live for God» (Saint Fulgence, Bishop of Ruspe).
“What Is God’s Will For My Life?” We tend to ask this question in capital letters, as we wonder about God’s grand plan for our careers, our state in life, and our life’s purpose. Of course, these are very important questions. God wants to help us discover his path for us and the impact we can have on his creation.
However, these are not choices that we make day in, day out. We simply take the small step that lies in front of us that day and do it with love. Most of the time, we understand what that step is: “I am supposed to do the laundry, pick up my child from school, or review the end-of-day report at work. I will come to understand other tasks as the day unfolds.” The key question is whether we do each of these things with love for the Lord and love for the person in front of us.
In her book The Ear of the Heart, actress-turned-religious-sister Dolores Hart recounts a conversation with a nun who founded a monastery in the United States after her French convent had been liberated from the Nazis. Explaining what the beginning of that work was like, she said, “The secret to keeping this place going was to do the next thing that had to be done—without wasting time worrying.” Using a construction analogy, she went on to say, “It’s a continuous process of sawing to build and at the same time trying to dispose of the sawdust.”
We seldom have the big picture at the beginning. Instead, God shows us one small step. Then, as we faithfully do our best with this, we come to understand him and his larger plan a little better. It’s like an upward spiral in which each step of obedience opens up new vistas and new opportunities for us to work with God and build his kingdom. It may take many steps before we have any inkling of what we are building, but the results become more and more spectacular over time.
“Lord, thank you for inviting me to build with you. Help me today to take the step in front of me, empowered by your love.”
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