“Không phải anh em đã chọn thầy, Nhưng chính thầy đã chọn anh em.”
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..
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.
“If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” John 15:10
When Jesus spoke the line above, He followed it by saying, “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.” These two lines, taken side by side, provide a helpful unity of Jesus’ teaching regarding holy obedience to Him.
First, Jesus speaks of the necessity of keeping His commandments. To some, such a statement, when taken by itself, can seem burdensome, dictatorial, oppressive and confining. But is it? The answer is found clearly as we read on.
The next thing Jesus teaches is that the effect of keeping His commandments is that we “remain in His love.” He further explains that He is not asking us to do anything that He Himself was not willing to do. He was obedient to the will of the Father, keeping the commandments of the Father to perfection. Therefore, we should hear His command as a dictate flowing from His own freely lived choice to be obedient. As the Incarnate Son of God, He perfectly obeyed the Father in His human nature. The result was that He remained perfectly filled with the love of the Father. But that’s not all. Joy is also experienced in a “complete” way when we imitate Jesus’ perfect obedience.
In light of the teaching from our Lord, how do you view holy obedience to the will of God? Take, for example, each of the Ten Commandments. Do you struggle with unwavering obedience to them? Do you experience them as oppressive and imposed limitations rather than what they truly are? When understood correctly, the Ten Commandments, and every other dictate of the will of God, are exactly what we need and, even more so, exactly what we deeply desire in life. We want interior order rather than chaos. We want integrity rather than fragility. We want joy rather than sadness. And we want unity with the love of God rather than the loss of God. The path to the life we so deeply desire is obedience to the commands of the will of God in all things.
Reflect, today, upon your immediate interior reaction to holy obedience. If you do find yourself resistant in any way to this teaching of Jesus, then that is a good sign that you need this teaching more than you may know. Try to look at obedience in the light of truth. Try to see that, deep down, your soul yearns for obedience and the interior order it brings. Examine, especially, any areas of obedience you struggle with and firmly recommit yourself to unwavering obedience to each and every command of our Lord.
My obedient Lord, You obeyed the will of Your Father in Heaven to perfection. Through this obedience, You not only experienced the full love and joy of the Father in Your human nature, You also set for us a perfect example and model for holiness. Help me to see the areas of my life in which I need to be more obedient, so that I, too, will share in Your holy life and that of the Father’s. Jesus, I trust in You.
Opening Prayer: Lord God, I thank you for the gift of the New Covenant. You send the Holy Spirit into my heart so that I may remain in the covenant and abide in your love. Dwell in me and fill my soul with your grace, enlighten my intellect with your wisdom, and strengthen my will with your charity.
1. Love, Joy, Peace: As we read the Last Supper Discourse in the Gospel of John, we can discern many of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Paul, in Galatians 5:22-23, lists nine of them: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Jesus has already spoken about peace, and we meditated on peace as a fruit of the New Covenant on Monday (see John 14:27). Today, Jesus begins to focus on love (agape) and how we remain and abide in divine love by keeping the commandments. As well, Jesus speaks about a third fruit – the fruit of joy. Joy, unlike fleeting pleasure, is lasting. Joy, unlike pleasure, can be present along with suffering. Joy is a deep satisfaction and contentment: “Love brings with it joy because love satisfies the heart’s deepest desire and most ardent aspiration, since human beings were created to love and be loved. Alongside joy, there is peace. The Spirit establishes peace in people’s hearts as he leads them to be in harmony with God’s fatherly will and gives them victory over all their disordered tendencies, which would otherwise entangle them in endless interior conflict. In addition, the Spirit brings peace among people because he directs them to benevolence and harmony” (Vanhoye and Williamson, Galatians, 198).
Opening Prayer: Lord God, I thank you for the gift of the New Covenant. You send the Holy Spirit into my heart so that I may remain in the covenant and abide in your love. Dwell in me and fill my soul with your grace, enlighten my intellect with your wisdom, and strengthen my will with your charity.
1. Abiding in the Father’s Love: During the Last Supper, Jesus introduces his disciples into the deep mystery of Trinitarian love and the New Covenant. The first line in today’s Gospel speaks about the eternal love between the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit, Jesus will reveal, is the bond of love between the Father and the Son. The Spirit is the one who draws us into this Trinitarian communion of love, which is the ultimate purpose of the Church’s mission. Jesus teaches his disciples that, as the Son of God, he keeps the Father's commandments and abides in the Father’s love. Jesus was empowered by the Spirit in his Passion to conform perfectly to the will of the Father and to maintain his solidarity with us even to the point of death (Hebrews 9:12-14). Through his death, Jesus becomes the mediator of the New Covenant, having intervened for the redemption of the transgressions and violations of the law of the first covenant (Hebrews 9:15). In like manner, we abide in Jesus’ love by keeping his commandments. We too are empowered by the Spirit to love God and our neighbor.
2. Covenant Responsibility and Joy: Jesus’ exhortation to keep the Father’s commandments is a part of the ratification of the New Covenant. Just as God gave the old Law to the people of Israel as their covenant responsibility and they accepted it (Exodus 24:3-4), so Jesus now gives the New Law to his disciples and they welcome it. Jesus tells them that if they keep and are faithful to the commandments of the New Covenant, they will remain in God’s love. One of the difficulties of the Old Covenant was the inability of the people of Israel to keep it. By contrast, in the New Covenant, we are enabled by the grace of the Holy Spirit to keep the New Law, the new commandment of love. This New Covenant can never be broken, since it has been forged by the blood of the Son, who was faithful to the end. One of the fruits of the New Covenant and of abiding in Jesus is joy. This joy is the joy of Jesus himself: “a joy sought and found in obedience to the Father and in the gift of self to others” (John Paul II, July 25, 2002). Paul teaches that joy, love, and peace are all fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). The Holy Spirit infuses into our hearts the same joy that Jesus had, “the joy of faithfulness to the love which comes from the Father” (John Paul II, June 19, 1991).
Opening Prayer:
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.
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