Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Chúa Nhật thứ Sáu Mùa Phục Sinh B

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Chúa Nhật thứ Sáu Mùa Phục Sinh B

Lạy Chúa Giêsu, xin dạy con biết yêu thương. Xin Chúa giúp con biết tăng cường sửa đổi những khuyết điểm của con. Xin giúp con biết tuân giữ tình yêu thương của Ngài bằng cách tuân giữ các điều răn của Ngài.
Qua bài tin mừng hôm nay, Chúa Giêsu mời gọi chúng ta hãy sống trong một cuộc sống vui vẻ và bình an, cuộc sống này được bảo đảm trong tình yêu thương của Thiên Chúa Cha, Đấng đã tạo dựng vũ trụ và con người. Ngài mong muốn chúng ta luôn ở trong tình yêu của Ngài và sống hạnh phúc trong tình yêu thương của Ngài. Chúng ta được chọn để sống cuộc sống sung túc với tư cách là người bạn của Chúa Giêsu, Đấng Cứu chuộc của chúng ta.
Việc học cách yêu thương như Chúa Giêsu đã yêu là nhiệm vụ của cả đời chúng ta. Linh mục Thomas Wells đã làm lễ cưới cho hàng trăm cặp vợ chồng trong suốt cuộc đời làm linh mục của ngài. Các bài giảng của Ngài trong các lễ cưới, vị linh mục đã khuyên nhủ các cặp vợ chồng mới là: "Tôi cầu xin hai bạn, là mỗi ngày và mỗi đêm trong cuộc đời của hai bạn, các bạn hãy quỳ xuống và cầu xin Chúa dạy cho hai bạn cách yêu thương!"  Cho dù chúng ta có ơn kêu gọi nào đi nữa, hay chúng ta đang ở trong bất cứ trạng thái nào của cuộc sống, đây phải là lời cầu nguyện thường xuyên của chúng ta.
Hạnh phúc bắt nguồn từ sự trải nghiệm của con người chúng ta. Hạnh phúc liên quan đến cảm xúc của chúng ta và thường có thể bị ảnh hưởng bởi những người khác hoặc bởi những hoàn cảnh khác biệt của chúng ta. Niềm vui thì được ăn sâu vào tâm hồn chúng ta và không phụ thuộc vào hoàn cảnh của chúng ta hay hành động của người khác. Niềm vui mà chúng ta tìm thấy khi chúng ta ở trong Thiên Chúa và khi chúng ta cố gắng tuân giữ các điều răn của Ngài quả thật là trọn vẹn; vì chúng ta đượv ở lại trong tình yêu thương của Thiên Chúa Cha và có được trải nghiệm trong sự bình an của Ngài.
Tình yêu của Thiên Chúa Cha dành cho chúng ta là nguồn vui của chúng ta. Trong Kinh thánh có rất nhiều chỗ diễn tả cho chúng ta thấy rõ ràng về tình yêu này; thí dú như trong thơ thứ Nhật của Thánh Phêrô có viết: Ngài gọi chúng ta là dân được chọn (1 Phêrô 2: 9), Trong sách tiên tri Giêrêmea thì nói rằng: Ta đã yêu ngươi, một tình yêu muôn đời, bởi thế với ngươi, Ta đã giữ bền lòng ân nghĩa. (Giêrêmia 31: 3), và Ngài đã gọi chúng ta là con của Ngài như Tin mừnmg Thánh Gioan có Viết: Ngài ban cho họ quyền làm con Thiên Chúa. (Gioan 1:12).  Đấng tạo dựng lên vũ trụ, Chúa của lịch sử, yêu chúng ta và muốn chúng ta làm bạn với Ngài. Ôi, quả thật là niềm vui vô tận!
Chúa Giêsu vì yêu thương con người tội lỗi, Ngài đã hy sinh mạng sống của Ngài cho chúng ta và gọi chúng ta là bạn hữu của Ngài. Ngài ra dạy cho chúng ta là phải yêu thương nhau như Ngài yêu thương chúng ta. Tình yêu thương (bác ái) này là đức tính cao cả nhất trong các nhân đức thần học; nó bao hàm sự vâng phục Chúa, và tình yêu thương nhân hậu đối với nhau. Mệnh lệnh của Chúa Giêsu rất rõ ràng, nhưng sống theo như cách Chúa dạy chúng ta hôm nay là hãy yêu thương nhau thì chẳng dễ chút nào vì chính bản chất dễ sa ngã của chúng ta. Khi chúng ta chọn không sống trong sự yêu thương, thì chúng ta đã đánh đổi chính bản thân mình bởi vì chúng ta bỏ lỡ đi niềm vui đích thực mà Chúa Giêsu đã hứa ban cho chúng ta nếu chúng ta cố gắng sống theo điều răn Yêu Thương này. Thật là một niềm vui siêu nhiên vì có được sự an ủi trong thời gian đầy bất trắc này!
Lạy Chúa và là Thiên Chúa của chúng con, những lời hứa của Ngài thật là niềm an ủi cho chúng con. Xin dạy chúng con không ngừng hướng về Chúa để được hướng dẫn và được ơn khôn ngoan. Xin Chúa hãy thêm sức mạnh cho những nỗ lực yếu đuối của chúng con trong việc sống theo Chúa, tuân giữ các giới răn của Chúa và yêu thương người khác như Chúa đã yêu chúng con. Xo₫in Chúa giữ cho chúng con không bị cám dỗ bởi những niềm vui, hạnh phúc tađm bợ trong thế giớ này hay sự hài lòng ngắn hạn; Xin Chúa hướng dẫn chúng con biết sống theo như cách của  Chúa.
Lạy Chúa, hôm nay nhờ ân điển của Chúa, chúng con sẽ dâng lên Chúa những giây phút đầu tiên mỗi ngày qua giờ kinh cầu nguyện và xin Chúa đốt cháy trái tim chúng con để chúng con biết dành hết tình yêu thương cho Chúa và cho tất cả mọi người như con cái Chúa.
 
Reflection 6th Week of Easter, Year B 2021
Lord Jesus, teach me how to love. Strengthen my weakness. Help me to abide in your love by keeping your commandments. 
Encountering Christ:
Joy through Loving: Jesus invites us to live a life of joy and peace, secure in the love of our Father and Creator. He wishes for us to remain in his love and delight in his friendship. We are chosen to live abundant lives as friends of Jesus our Savior. Learning to love as Jesus loved is the task of a lifetime. Father Thomas Wells married hundreds of couples during his life as a parish priest. He exhorted at every wedding: “I beg you, I beg you, I beg you, every day and every night of your life, get down on your knees and ask the Lord to teach you how to love!” No matter our vocation, no matter our state in life, this should be our constant prayer. 
Joy versus Happiness: Happiness is rooted in our human experience. It is related to our feelings and often can be influenced by others or by our circumstances. Joy is rooted deeply in our souls and does not depend on our circumstances or the actions of other people. The joy we find when we abide in God and strive to keep his commandments is indeed complete; to remain in the Father’s love is to experience his peace. The Father’s love for us is the source of our joy. Scripture abounds with descriptions of this love; he calls us a chosen people (1 Peter 2:9), says that he has loved us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3), and calls us his children (John 1:12). The Creator of the universe, the Lord of history, loves us and wants our friendship. What joy indeed!
Love Sacrificially: Jesus laid his life down for us and called us his friends. He commanded us to love one another as he loves us. This love (charity) is the greatest of the theological virtues; it encompasses obedience to the Lord, and merciful love towards each other. Jesus’s command is very clear, but living by these words can be difficult because of our fallen nature. When we choose not to love, we ultimately shortchange ourselves because we miss out on the joy Jesus has promised if we strive to live by the greatest commandment. What a comfort supernatural joy can be in this time of uncertainty!
Conversing with Christ: My Lord and my God, your promises are so comforting. Teach me to constantly turn to you for guidance and wisdom. Make strong my weak efforts to follow you, to keep your commandments, and to love others as you have loved me. Keep me from being tempted by short-term happiness and satisfaction; lead me in your ways. 
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will give you the first moments each day, prayerfully asking for you to ignite my heart with love for you and all of your children.
 
Reflection 6th Week of Easter, Year B 2024
“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. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.” John 15:15–17
Just prior to the passage quoted above, Jesus says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Is that the measure of true friendship? That we do what our friend commands us to do? That depends upon which friend we are speaking about.
There are many images we use for God. We call Him Father, Savior, Master, Lord, King, Redeemer, Spirit and Friend. When it comes to God as our divine Friend, it is important to understand the nature of that friendship properly. Jesus’ friendship is not one that simply makes us “buddies.” Friendship with our Lord is not the same as a friendship between two equals. He is God. And because He is God, our friendship with Him takes on unique characteristics that are not present in other friendships. With that said, there could be no greater friend than the Lord Himself.
Among humans, our friendships have various foundations. It could be that two people have mutual interests and they enjoy engaging in those interests together. It could be that two people have spent much pleasant time together since childhood. Or it could be that two people have endured some difficulty together and that experience has bonded them together. But according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, friendship in its purest form is based on just one thing: mutual charity.
Charity is the form of love that is purely selfless. It’s a way of relating to another in which a person’s sole focus is the good of the other. It is not based on one’s own self interests. It’s not a matter of “what do I get out of it?” In 1 Corinthians 13:4–8, St. Paul defines the love of charity this way: “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” This is not only the definition of charity, it is also the only foundation for true friendship.
When you consider all of these qualities of charity, you will find that God relates to us in each of these ways. For that reason, God offers us the purest friendship possible. Whether or not we reciprocate these qualities to God will determine the depth of the bond of friendship that we establish with Him. But there is more. When we love God, we must love Him in a way that is proper and proportionate to Who God is. For example, if we offer charity to God, we seek to fulfill only God’s interests and rejoice in the Truth of Who He is. Thus, the charity we offer to God comes in the form of worship. He is God and is worthy of worship, adoration, surrender, trust and perfect obedience. When it is God we are loving, the very essence of the Person we love requires these responses.
One beautiful and consoling thing to recognize with this form of charity given to God is that it also establishes a true friendship with God. When we offer our worship to God, we are in a position to receive the very life of God in return. And the giving of ourselves, coupled with the reception of the life of God, establishes a bond of holy friendship that will transform us, unite us with Him and fulfill us to perfection. Friendship with God makes us one with Him and opens us to receive everything that He shares with us—namely, His very Self.
Reflect, today, upon the invitation Jesus has offered you to enter into a true friendship with Him. This means that God becomes the center of your life. It means that you seek to give yourself, selflessly and without reserve, to Him Who is deserving of all your love. It means you choose worship and obedience to perfection. The reward of such love is that you are able to enter into a bond that is so holy, so pure and so fulfilling that it completes you, enabling you to become who you were meant to be.
My God and true Friend, You offer me everything in life. You offer me Your perfect love, given fully and without reserve. I pray that I will reciprocate that depth of love and offer to You all that You deserve. I offer You my love, worship and obedience, dear Lord. May this mutual love form a bond that will never end. Jesus, I trust in You.
 
Reflection 6th Week of Easter, Year B 2024
Opening Prayer: Lord God, your plan of salvation is eternal. You sent your Son in the fullness of time to save us from eternal death and redeem us from the debt of sin. He gathered the remnant of Israel and sent them out into the whole world. Send me out to gather my family, friends, and coworkers into your divine family.
Encountering the Word of God
1. Love One Another: At the Last Supper, Jesus revealed the great mystery of the Holy Trinity. God is Father, Son, and Spirit. God is revealed by Jesus as a communion of love. The Father eternally loves the Son and the Son eternally loves the Father. Their mutual eternal love “spirates” (breathes forth) the Third Person of the Trinity – God the Holy Spirit. This eternal Triune communion of Love offers us a share in their divine love. This is the whole purpose of creation. And when human beings sinned and broke the bond of love with God, the Father sent the Son to the world: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). Love, we see, is much more than a passive feeling, it is an action. Whether or not I love someone shouldn’t be based on how the other person makes me feel. Love is about how people can give themselves to one another for each other’s true good. It is about how I can give of myself and sacrifice myself for another person and their good. God’s love is not selfish or self-centered but self-giving. God the Father doesn’t hold back when he sees his children in need. He seeks their true good and sends his Son to save them and reestablish them in divine friendship. God is not a master who seeks to benefit from his servants, but a Father who wants to see his children flourish and enjoy his divine life and love.
2. Gathering the Nations into the Friendship of Divine Love: The First Reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, narrates how the saving love of God was extended to the Gentiles. Peter, we are told, began to understand the meaning of the vision he had that commanded him to eat unclean food three times. Following the urging of the Holy Spirit, Peter entered the house of Cornelius, a Gentile. Just as he must no longer consider the foods prohibited by Deuteronomy 14 to be unclean, Peter must no longer consider the Gentiles to be unclean. The protective walls of Deuteronomy that separated Israel culturally and ritually from the influence of the Gentile nations were being torn down. Peter announced to Cornelius and his whole household that the New Covenant is universal: anyone who fears the Lord and does what is right is acceptable to God and can be welcomed into God’s covenant family. Jews and Gentiles are both called to believe in Jesus and receive the forgiveness of their sins. Peter notes that all the prophets bore witness to Jesus’ ministry as the anointed one (Acts 10:43). And the prophets often depicted the future salvation happening in two phases: “First a remnant of Israel would be restored, and then the restored Israel would draw men from all nations into herself (cf. Isaiah 2:2-4; 49:5-6; Zechariah 8:23; 14:8-9)” (Pimentel, Witnesses of the Messiah, 102). During his public ministry, Jesus was concerned with the first phase. He gathered a remnant and restored the twelve tribes in the twelve apostles. After his resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven, Jesus sent out his twelve apostles, the symbol of the restored Israel, to carry out the second phase. 
3. The Purifying Work of the Spirit: The forty years between Jesus’ death and the destruction of Jerusalem was a special time of testing and brought the old covenant of Deuteronomy to its conclusion and fulfillment in the New Covenant. The Holy Spirit was poured out and made clean what was unclean and made possible the incorporation of the Gentiles into the restored Israel. “The presence and action of the Holy Spirit therefore abolishes the Pharisaic program of separation from the Gentile world. Although the Pharisees knew the prophecies of the Gentiles’ entry into Israel, they had misinterpreted them to mean that the Gentiles would one day embrace the Deuteronomic covenant and its Law. The Pharisees did not imagine that God would act in a far bolder way to bring about a ‘new thing’ (cf. Isaiah 43:19)” (Pimentel, Witnesses of the Messiah, 103). Peter, in fact, witnessed the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles and baptized them. When Peter did this, he affirmed that a person is brought into the New Covenant not by circumcision but by Baptism and the Holy Spirit. Through this sacrament and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Gentiles are brought to share in the eternal love of the Trinity.
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, I want to love like you did. I will give my life for the sake of others so that they may come to know you and encounter you. I will bear your love into this world and alleviate the sufferings of those around me as best as I can.