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 5th week of Easter 2024
Jesus said to his disciples: “If the world
hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the
world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I
have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.” John 15:18–19
This is a sobering thought: “the world hates you.” That
is, if you are among those who have been taken by our
Lord out of the world. In that case, Jesus says that the world will
hate you.
No one wants to be hated. No one wants to experience the wrath,
persecution, attacks, or ridicule of another. Hatred is ugly, painful and
difficult to endure. But that is part of the nature of hate. It’s not only a
form of persecution, it’s also a form of manipulation. Hate is an attack upon
another by which the hater seeks to inflict injury and to manipulate them to
change and conform to their will. The secular and unchristian “world” wants to
win you over and away from God. Jesus offers this teaching, in part, to prepare
us so that when we do experience hatred from the world, we will not be affected
by it nor manipulated to turn from Him. Therefore, this teaching is a
revelation of much mercy from our Lord.
Remember that Jesus spoke of three enemies of our soul. The flesh,
the devil and the world. In this Gospel passage, to “belong to the world” means
that a person allows themself to be negatively influenced by the countless lies
embedded within the world. The secular media, pop-culture, biased opinions,
social pressures, false images of happiness and the like seek to constantly
misguide us and draw us in. We are regularly tempted to believe that
fulfillment is found in money, our physical appearance, the recognition of our
accomplishments and much more. The world tells us that our opinions must
conform to the secular values of the age—and if they don’t, then we are
judgmental, close-minded extremists and should be shunned and “canceled” or
silenced.
These worldly temptations and pressures are real, and, for that
reason, Jesus’ words are freeing. They free us from the manipulations and
deceptions we will experience when we live our faith openly for all to see.
When we do so, we will be hated by the world. But knowing that provides peace
of heart when it happens.
Reflect, today, upon these powerful and consoling words of Jesus.
If you do not experience any form of hatred from the world, then this should be
a concern and the cause for reflection. And if you do experience some form of
hatred, know that our Lord prepared you for this and offers you His strength
and courage to endure it with joy. In the end, all that matters is what our
Lord thinks—and nothing else. In the end, if you experience hatred by the world
in any form, know that this makes you more like Christ Himself.
My persecuted Lord, You endured the hatred and ridicule of many
who were engulfed by the false values of the world. I pray that I may share not
only in Your life of love and mercy but also in Your strength during the times
that I also endure the world’s hatred. I commit myself to You and pray that You
continually take me out of the world and bring me close to Yourself. Jesus, I
trust in You.
Friday 5th week of Easter 2025
Opening Prayer: Lord God, I thank you for the awesome gift of being your
child. I did nothing to deserve your divine friendship. You are so good and are
so generous with your gifts!
Encountering the Word of God
1. Loving like Jesus: At first glance, the new commandment to love as Jesus
did could seem like an impossible task. Who among us is ready to give their
lives on behalf of their friends? Who among us is ready to undergo suffering or
persecution even though we are innocent? Who among us is ready to suffer for
the sake of someone else? On our own, these things seem impossible. But united
to Christ and filled with the grace of the Spirit, all things are possible.
Grace heals us and elevates us. The infused virtues enable us to act in
supernatural and divine ways. When someone once saw Mother Teresa cleansing the
wounds of a leper, they remarked that they wouldn’t do that for a million
dollars. And Mother Teresa turned and said, “I wouldn’t do it for a million dollars,
but I would do it for Christ.” In her simple words: “I see Jesus in every human
being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick
Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I
serve because I love Jesus.”
2. From Slaves to Friends: The reference to slaves in the Gospel
can be seen as a reference to the Deuteronomic Covenant. At the foot of Mt.
Sinai, God offered a kinship covenant and invited Israel to become his
firstborn sons (Exodus 4:22). Israel quickly broke the kinship covenant, and it
needed to be renewed and reworked. After 40 years of rebellion in the desert,
Moses mediated the Deuteronomic (Second-Law) covenant. This was modelled on a
vassal-type covenant, “in which a mighty king asserts his sovereignty over a
subject people, imposes an oath of loyalty upon them, and sets forth the
blessings and curses that will follow when a vassal proves loyal or disloyal. …
Deuteronomy places Israel, after years of rebellion in the wilderness (Deut
9:7), in a state of covenant vassalage. For the duration of its national life,
Israel will be governed by the strict discipline of the Deuteronomic covenant
under the watchful eye of the Lord” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and
New Testament, 280-281). What Jesus announces and establishes at the Last
Supper is the New Covenant. This New Covenant makes us brothers and friends of
Jesus and adopted children of God: “I no longer call you slaves, … I have
called you friends.”
3. From Slaves to Sons: As friends of Jesus, we share a
quasi-familial life together, a communion comparable to kinship. In fact, in
the ancient world, friendship was analogous to kinship. In the New Covenant, we
are friends of Jesus (see John 15:13-15) and brothers of Jesus (see John
20:17). Since a friend was another “self,” it follows that a friend of Jesus
the Son will be another “son” who shares in his filial life with the Father.
This grant of friendship is a grant of a covenantal relation. By choosing his
disciples and welcoming them as his friends, Jesus enlarges the house of the
Father to welcome all peoples into the covenant of love (see DeMeo, “Covenant
Fulfillment in the Gospel of John,” 134-135).
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, help my faith flourish in
works of love today. Show me your face so that I may see the Face of the
Father. Move my heart to spend time with you and dwell with you so that I may
bring others to encounter you.
Friday 5th week of Easter 2024
Opening Prayer: Lord God, I am in the world you have created, but this
is not my true home. I am a pilgrim and sojourner on a lifelong journey to your
house, where your Son has prepared a dwelling for me. Lift up my eyes toward my
heavenly home. Do not let me be discouraged on the journey but fill me with
hope in your promise.
Encountering the Word of God
1. Persecuted Children of the Father: The Gospel teaches us that Jesus’
disciples do not belong to the world because they have been freed from the sin
of the world by Jesus himself. They are no longer slaves to sin and can now
enjoy the freedom of the children of God. This freedom does not take away
persecution and suffering. Just as the Son of God was persecuted and suffered,
we too, as children of God, will be persecuted and suffer. One of the causes of
the persecution of the bearers of the Gospel is ignorance: those who persecute
the Apostles do not know the Father, who sent his only begotten Son to the
world to redeem it. The proclamation of the Gospel by the Apostles, accompanied
by signs and wonders accomplished in Jesus’ name, seeks to bring the people out
of the darkness of ignorance and into the light of Christ. This light is a
liberating and merciful light. It uncovers the lies of the world and its false
promise of happiness. It reveals to us that we have sinned against God, but
that we can be purified in the blood of the Lamb. Today’s Psalm reflects the
joy we experience when we walk in the light of Christ. We sing today: “The Lord
is good: his kindness endures forever, and his faithfulness, to all
generations.”
2. The Beginning of Paul’s Second Missionary Journey: In the First Reading, the Acts of the
Apostles narrates the beginning of Paul’s Second Missionary Journey (A.D.
50-52). Paul set out and invited Barnabas to come with him, saying: “Come, let
us return and visit the brethren in every city where we proclaimed the word of
the Lord, and see how they are” (Acts 15:37). Barnabas wanted to take Mark with
them but Paul disagreed with Barnabas because Mark had abandoned them during
the first missionary journey. Paul and Barnabas decided to separate: Barnabas
took Mark with him and sailed to the cities of his homeland in Cyprus. Paul, on
the other hand, took Silas with him and went through Syria and Cilicia and
returned to the cities of Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch in Pisidia.
During their journeys, both Barnabas and Paul were able to communicate the
recent decision of the Council of Jerusalem to the newly founded churches. The
Council had decided that Gentiles who came to believe in Jesus did not have to
be circumcised according to the Law of Moses. There were still some
difficulties in accepting this teaching. We see this in Paul’s decision to
circumcise Timothy. Paul did this “on account of the Jews” of the region and
because Timothy was considered a Jew, and not a Gentile, on his mother’s side.
As Paul hands on the teaching of the Council to the recently founded churches,
the churches grew stronger in faith and increased in number.
3. Persecution in Macedonia: After ministering to the churches in
Galatia, Paul and Silas wanted to go north toward Bithynia, but were prevented
by the Spirit of Jesus and led instead to the port city of Troas. During the
night, Paul had a vision of a Macedonian imploring him to cross over to
Macedonia and help them. In the morning, Paul and Silas discerned that this was
God’s will for them: they would preach the Good News in Europe. At Troas, they
probably met up with Luke, who accompanied them for a time and set sail with
them to Macedonia. During their evangelizing mission, Paul and Silas suffered
persecution in Macedonia, especially in the city of Philippi: they were
stripped, beaten with rods, and imprisoned. Jesus’ Last Supper discourse in the
Gospel of John refers to the persecutions that the Apostles would endure as
they spread the Gospel to all nations. Jesus’ disciples must know that the
world will hate them because it first hated him. Jesus tells us (in John 7:7)
that the world, considered here as something negative, hates him because he
shows the world that its sinful ways are evil. As the Lamb of God, however,
Jesus has come to take away the sin of the world and purify and renew it.
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, as a child of God, I will endure persecution
and suffer for the Gospel. You know the limits of my strength. I fully trust in
you to accompany me, in your Father to care for me, and in your Spirit to guide
me.
Living the Word of God: How have I been listening to the Spirit lately? What is
the Spirit asking me to do? Where am I called to be a witness to the Good News
of our salvation? How am I promoting and proclaiming the teachings of Jesus and
the Church? How can I do better?
Friday 5th week of Easter
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:
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.
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).
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.
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