May 8, 2015

Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

The Apostles and presbyters, in agreement with the whole Church,
decided to choose representatives
and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.
The ones chosen were Judas, who was called Barsabbas,
and Silas, leaders among the brothers.
This is the letter delivered by them:
“The Apostles and the presbyters, your brothers,
to the brothers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia
of Gentile origin: greetings.
Since we have heard that some of our number
who went out without any mandate from us
have upset you with their teachings
and disturbed your peace of mind,
we have with one accord decided to choose representatives
and to send them to you along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,
who have dedicated their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So we are sending Judas and Silas
who will also convey this same message by word of mouth:
‘It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us
not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities,
namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols,
from blood, from meats of strangled animals,
and from unlawful marriage.
If you keep free of these,
you will be doing what is right. Farewell.’“

And so they were sent on their journey.
Upon their arrival in Antioch
they called the assembly together and delivered the letter.
When the people read it, they were delighted with the exhortation.

Responsorial Psalm PS 57:8-9, 10 and 12

R. (10a) I will give you thanks among the peoples, O Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
My heart is steadfast, O God; my heart is steadfast;
I will sing and chant praise.
Awake, O my soul; awake, lyre and harp!
I will wake the dawn.
R. I will give you thanks among the peoples, O Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
I will give thanks to you among the peoples, O LORD,
I will chant your praise among the nations.
For your mercy towers to the heavens,
and your faithfulness to the skies.
Be exalted above the heavens, O God;
above all the earth be your glory!
R. I will give you thanks among the peoples, O Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.

Alleluia Jn 15:15

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I call you my friends, says the Lord,
for I have made known to you all that the Father has told me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Jn 15:12-17

Jesus said to his disciples:
“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
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.
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
	English: Douay-Rheims	Latin: Vulgata Clementina	Greek NT: Byzantine/Majority Text (2000)
	John 15
12.	This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.	Hoc est præceptum meum, ut diligatis invicem, sicut dilexi vos.	αυτη εστιν η εντολη η εμη ινα αγαπατε αλληλους καθως ηγαπησα υμας
13.	Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.	Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet, ut animam suam ponat qui pro amicis suis.	μειζονα ταυτης αγαπην ουδεις εχει ινα τις την ψυχην αυτου θη υπερ των φιλων αυτου
14.	You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you.	Vos amici mei estis, si feceritis quæ ego præcipio vobis.	υμεις φιλοι μου εστε εαν ποιητε οσα εγω εντελλομαι υμιν
15.	I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.	Jam non dicam vos servos : quia servus nescit quid faciat dominus ejus. Vos autem dixi amicos : quia omnia quæcumque audivi a Patre meo, nota feci vobis.	ουκετι υμας λεγω δουλους οτι ο δουλος ουκ οιδεν τι ποιει αυτου ο κυριος υμας δε ειρηκα φιλους οτι παντα α ηκουσα παρα του πατρος μου εγνωρισα υμιν
16.	You have not chosen me: but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.	Non vos me elegistis, sed ego elegi vos, et posui vos ut eatis, et fructum afferatis, et fructus vester maneat : ut quodcumque petieritis Patrem in nomine meo, det vobis.	ουχ υμεις με εξελεξασθε αλλ εγω εξελεξαμην υμας και εθηκα υμας ινα υμεις υπαγητε και καρπον φερητε και ο καρπος υμων μενη ινα ο τι αν αιτησητε τον πατερα εν τω ονοματι μου δω υμιν
17.	These things I command you, that you love one another.	Hæc mando vobis : ut diligatis invicem.	ταυτα εντελλομαι υμιν ινα αγαπατε αλληλους

12. This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.
13. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14. You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you.
15. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his Lord does; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known to you.
16. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you.

THEOPHYL. Having said, If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, He shows what commandments they are to keep: This is My commandment, That you love one another.

GREG. But when all our Lord's sacred discourses are full of His commandments, why does He give this special commandment respecting love, if it is not that every commandment teaches love, and all precepts are one? Love and love only is the fulfillment of every thing that is enjoined. As all the boughs of a tree proceed from one root, so all the virtues are produced form one love: nor has the branch, i.e. the good work, any life, except it abide in the root of love.

AUG. Where then love is, what can be wanting? Where it is not, what can profit? But this love is distinguished from men's love to each other as men, by adding, As I have loved you. To what end did Christ love us, but that we should reign with Him? Let us therefore so love one another, as that our love be different from that of other men; who do not love one another, to the end that God may be loved, because they do not really love at all. They who love one another for the sake of having God within them, they truly love one another.

GREG. The highest, the only proof of love, is to love our adversary; as did the Truth Himself, who while He suffered on the cross, showed His love for His persecutors: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). Of which love the consummation is given in the next words:

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Our Lord came to die for His enemies, but He says that He is going to lay down His life for His friends, to show us that by loving, we are able to gain over our enemies, so that they who persecute us are by anticipation our friends.

AUG. Having said, This is My commandment: that you love one another, even as I have loved you (1 Jn 3); it follows, as John said in his Epistle, that as Christ laid down His life for us, so we should lay down our lives for the brethren. This the martyrs have done with ardent love And therefore in commemorating them at Christ's table, we do not pray for them, as we do for others, but we rather pray that we may follow their steps. For they have shown the same love for their brother, that has been shown them at the Lord's table.

GREG. But whoever in time of tranquillity will not give up his time to God, how in persecution will he give up his soul? Let the virtue of love then, that it may be victorious in tribulation, be nourished in tranquillity by deeds of mercy.

AUG From one and the same love, we love God and our neighbor, but God for His own sake, our neighbor for God's. So that, there being two precepts of love, on which hang all the Law and the Prophets, to love God, and to love our neighbor, Scripture often unites them into one precept. For if a man love God, it follows s that he does what God commands, and if so, that he loves his neighbor, God having commanded this. Wherefore He proceeds: You are My friends, if you do whatsoever I command you.

GREG. A friend is as it were a keeper of the soul. He who keeps God's commandments, is rightly called His friend.

AUG. Great condescension! Though to keep his Lord's commandments is only what a good servant is obliged to do, yet, if they do so, He calls them His friends. The good servant is both the servant and the friend. But how is this? He tells us: Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knows not what his Lord does. Shall we therefore cease to be servants, as soon as ever we are good servants? And is not a good and tried servant sometimes entrusted with his master's secrets, still remaining a servant? We must understand then that there are two kinds of servitude, as there are two kinds of fear. There is a fear which perfect love casts out; which also has in it a servitude, which will be cast out together with the fear. And there is another, a pure fear, which remains forever.

It is the former state of servitude, which our Lord refers to, when He says, Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knows not what his Lord does; not the state of that servant to whom it is said, Well done, you good servant, enter you into the joy of your Lord (Matt 25:21), but of him of whom it was said below, The servant abides not in the house for ever, but the Son abides ever. Forasmuch then as God has given us power to become the sons of God, so that in a wonderful way, we are servants, and yet not servants, we know that it is the Lord who does this. This that servant is ignorant of, who knows not what his Lord does, and when he does any good thing, is exalted in his own conceit, as if he himself did it, and not his Lord; and boasts of himself, not of his Lord.

But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you.

THEOPHYL. As if He said, The servant knows not the counsels of his lord; but since I esteem you friends, I have communicated my secrets to you.

AUG. But how did He make known to His disciples all things that He had heard from the Father, when He forebore saying many things, because He knew they as yet could not bear them? He made all things known to His disciples, i.e., He knew that He should make them known to them in that fullness of which the Apostle said, Then we shall know, even as we are known (1 Cor 13:12). For as we look for the death of the flesh, and the salvation of the soul, so should we look for that knowledge of all things, which the Only-Begotten heard from the Father.

GREG. Or all things which He heard from the Father, which He wished to be made known to His servants: the joys of spiritual love, the pleasures of our heavenly country, which He impresses daily on our minds by the inspiration of His love. For while we love the heavenly things we hear, we know them by loving, because love is itself knowledge. He had made all things known to them then, because being withdrawn from earthly desires, they burned with the fire of divine love.

CHRYS. All things, i.e., all things that they ought to hear. I have heard, shows that what He had taught was no strange doctrine, but received from the Father.

GREG. But let no one who has attained to this dignity of being called the friend of God, attribute this superhuman gift to his own merits:

You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.

AUG. Ineffable grace! For what were we before Christ had chosen us, but wicked, and lost? We did not believe in Him, so as to be chosen by Him: for had He chosen us believing, He would have chosen us choosing. This passage refutes the vain opinion of those who say that we were chosen before the foundation of the world, because God foreknew that we should be good, not that He Himself would make us good.

For had He chosen us, because He foreknew that we should be good, He would have foreknown also that we should first choose Him, for without choosing Him we cannot be good; unless indeed he can be called good, who has not chosen good. What then has He chosen in them who are not good? you can not say, I am chosen because I believed; for had you believed in Him, you had chosen Him. Nor can you say, Before I believed I did good works, and therefore was chosen. For what good work is there before faith? What is there for us to say then, but that we were wicked, and were chosen, that by the grace of the chosen we might become good?

AUG. They are chosen then before the foundation of the world, according to that predestination by which God foreknew His future acts. They are chosen out of the world by that call whereby God fulfills what He has predestined: whom He did predestine, them He also called (Rom 8:30).

AUG. Observe, He does not choose the good; but those, whom He has chosen, He makes good: And I have ordained you that you should go, and bring forth fruit. This is the fruit which He meant, when He said, Without Me you can do nothing. He Himself is the way in which He has set us to go.

GREG. I have set you, i.e., have planted you by grace, that you should go by will: to will being to go in mind, and bring forth fruit, by works. What kind of fruit they should bring forth He then shows: And that your fruit may remain; for worldly labor hardly produces fruit to last our life; and if it does, death comes at last, and deprives us of it all. But the fruit of our spiritual labors endures even after death; and begins to be seen at the very time that the results of our carnal labor begin to disappear. Let us then produce such fruits as may remain, and of which death, which destroys every thing, will be the commencement.

AUG. Love then is one fruit, now existing in desire only, not yet in fullness. Yet even with this desire whatever we ask in the name of the Only-Begotten Son, the Father gives us: That whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, He may give it you. We ask in the Savior's name, whatever we ask, that will be profitable to our salvation.

17. These things I command you, that you love one another.

AUG. Our Lord had said, I have ordained that you should walk and bring forth fruit. Love is this fruit. Wherefore, He proceeds: These things I command you, that you love one another. Hence the Apostle said, The fruit of the Spirit is love(Gal 5:22), and enumerates all other graces as springing from this source. Well then does our Lord commend love, as if it were the only thing commanded: seeing that without it nothing can profit, with it nothing be wanting, whereby a man is made good.

CHRYS. Or thus: I have said that I lay down My life for you, and that I first chose you. I have said this not by way of reproach, but to induce you to love one another.

Then as they were about to suffer persecution and reproach, He bids them not to grieve, but rejoice on that account: If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you: as if to say, I know it is a hard trial, but you will endure it for My sake.

Catena Aurea John 15

Interactive Saints for Kids

Blessed Catherine of St. Augustine

Feast Day: May 08
Born: 1632 :: Died: 1668

Catherine de Longpre was born at Saint Saveur near Cherbourg in France. Catherin family was devout Catholics and she was baptized the very day she was born. Her grandparents were very good examples because of their true love and care of the poor.

Catherine watched wide-eyed as her grandmother invited a handicapped beggar into her home. She offered him a bath, clean clothes and a delicious meal. As Catherine and her grandparents sat around the fire that night, they prayed the Our Father out loud. They thanked God for his blessings.

Because there was no hospital in their small French town, the sick were nursed back to health in the home of Catherine's grandparents. Catherine began to realize that sickness and suffering take patience. She was just a little girl but she prayed to ask Jesus to make people suffer less.

When she was still quite young, she joined the convent of Sisters of St. Augustine. The sisters who took care of the sick in hospitals were called Hospitaller Sisters of the Mercy of Jesus. Her older sister took her vows and became a nun the day Catherine entered the convent.

In 1648, Cathereine listened to the missionary priests begging sisters to come to New France or Canada. Catherine's sister was chosen to be one of the first of their order to go as a missionary to Canada. Sister Catherine was just sixteen, but she begged to be chosen too. She pronounced her vows on May 4, 1648. Then she sailed for Canada the next day. It was the day before her sixteenth birthday.

Her parents were very distressed. Her father even presented a petition in the courts to stop her. Because Catherine was very affectionate by nature, she felt an extreme gratitude and tenderness for their concern. But she had made up her mind to live and die in Canada in service to the poor and sick. Years later, her father had a change of heart and supported her.

Life was hard in Quebec, Canada but Sister Catherine loved the people. The Indians were very grateful for her cheerful ways. She cooked and cared for the sick in the order's poor hospital building. But Sister Catherine learned about fear, too.

The Iroquois Indians were killing people and burning villages. She prayed to St. John Brebeuf, one of the Jesuit priests who had just been killed by the Iroquois in 1649. She asked him to help her be true to her calling. She heard him speaking in her heart, telling her to remain.

Food was not enough and the winters were terribly cold. Some of the sisters could not take the hard life and constant fear of death and they returned to France. Sister Catherine was afraid, too. Sometimes she could hardly pray. And while she smiled at all the dear people she cared for in the sick wards, she grew sad.

But she made a promise never to leave Canada and to remain, performing her works of charity until death. She was just twenty-two years old when she made that vow. Despite the hard pioneer life of the French colony, more people came. The Church grew. God blessed the new land with more missionaries.

In 1665, Sister Catherine became the novice mistress of her community. She kept up her life of prayer and hospital ministry until her death. Sister Marie Catherine of St. Augustine died on May 8, 1668. She was thirty-six years old. She was declared "blessed" by Pope John Paul II in 1989.

Reflection: Jesus never promised us that our lives would be easy and without pain. But he did promise to be with us always. We pray that we may learn to trust him completely.

The Question about Man's Resurrection

Today's Reading: Mark 12:13-27

13 And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to entrap him in his talk. 14 And they came and said to him, "Teacher, we know that you are true, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of men, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? 15 Should we pay them, or should we not?" But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, "Why put me to the test? Bring me a coin, and let me look at it." 16 And they brought one. And he said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?" They said to him, "Caesar's." 17 Jesus said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And they were amazed at him.

18 And Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, 19 "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the wife, and raise up children for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no children; 21 and the second took her, and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; 22 and the seven left no children. Last of all the woman also died. 23 In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife." 24 Jesus said to them, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? 27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong."

Today's Commentary:

Pharisees . . . Herodians: Two opposing groups in NT Palestine. They stand far apart in their political outlook but close together in their opposition to Jesus (3:6). The Pharisees opposed the Roman rule and occupation of Palestine, whereas the Herodians were sympathetic to Rome's government of Israel through the Herodian dynasty.

Whose likeness . . . ? Jesus responds with a riddle that plays on the word "likeness". Because Caesar's likeness is stamped on the coin for the tax, it should be given back to him as his rightful property. God's image and likeness, however, is stamped into every living person, including Caesar (Gen 1:27). Even more important than civil responsibilities is the obligation to everyone, including Caesar, has to give himself back to God. In the end, Jesus is able to rise above the controversy over taxation by stressing this higher duty incumbent upon all.

Catholic Culture

Daily Readings for:May 08, 2015
(Readings on USCCB website)

Collect: Grant us, Lord, we pray, that, being rightly conformed to the paschal mysteries, what we celebrate in joy may protect and save us with perpetual power. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

RECIPES

o St. Michael's Oatmeal Waffles

ACTIVITIES

o Fourteen Holy Helpers

o Marian Hymn: Bring Flowers of the Fairest

o May, the Month of Mary

PRAYERS

o Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven)

o May Pilgrimages

o May Devotion: Blessed Virgin Mary

o Prayer to St. Michael, the Archangel

o Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Litany of Loretto)

o Litany of the Fourteen Holy Helpers

LIBRARY

o Prayer to St. Michael | Pope Leo XIII

o St. Michael: Guardian of the Church | Fr. William Saunders

· Easter: May 8th

· Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Old Calendar: Apparition of St. Michael the Archangel (Hist); St. Acathius, martyr (Hist)

According to the 1962 Missal of St. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today is the feast of the apparition of St. Michael. The feast commemorates an apparition of St. Michael on the summit of Monte Gargano, in Italy on the Adriatic coast, and the dedication of the sanctuary built on the site of the apparition. It is also the feast of St. Acathius, a priest at Sebaste, Armenia, during Diocletian's persecution.

Apparition of St. Michael
It is evident from Holy Scripture that God is pleased to make frequent use of the ministry of the heavenly spirits in the dispensations of His providence in this world. The Angels are all pure spirits; by a property of their nature they are immortal, as is every spirit. They have the power of moving or conveying themselves at will from place to place, and such is their activity that it is not easy for us to conceive of it. Among the holy Archangels, Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael are particularly distinguished in the Scriptures. Saint Michael, whose name means Who is like unto God?, is the prince of the faithful Angels who opposed Lucifer and his followers in their revolt against God. Since the devil is the sworn enemy of God’s holy Church, Saint Michael is given to it by God as its special protector against the demon’s assaults and stratagems.

Various apparitions of this powerful Angel have proved the protection of Saint Michael over the Church. We may mention his apparition in Rome, where Saint Gregory the Great saw him in the air sheathing his sword, to signal the cessation of a pestilence and the appeasement of God’s wrath. Another apparition to Saint Ausbert, bishop of Avranches in France, led to the construction of Mont-Saint-Michel in the sea, a famous pilgrimage site. May 8^th, however, is destined to recall another no less marvelous apparition, occurring near Monte Gargano in the Kingdom of Naples.

In the year 492 a man named Gargan was pasturing his large herds in the countryside. One day a bull fled to the mountain, where it could not be found. When its refuge in a cave was discovered, an arrow was shot into the cave, but the arrow returned to wound the one who had sent it. Faced with this mysterious occurrence, the persons concerned decided to consult the bishop of the region. He ordered three days of fasting and prayers. After three days, the Archangel Michael appeared to the bishop and declared that the cavern where the bull had taken refuge was under his protection, and that God wanted it to be consecrated under his name and in honor of all the Holy Angels.

Accompanied by his clergy and people, the pontiff went to that cavern, which he found already disposed in the form of a church. The divine mysteries were celebrated there, and there arose in this same place a magnificent temple where the divine Power has wrought great miracles. To thank God’s adorable goodness for the protection of the holy Archangel, the effect of His merciful Providence, this feast day was instituted by the Church in his honor.

It is said of this special guardian and protector of the Church that, during the final persecution of Antichrist, he will powerfully defend it: “At that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince who protects the children of thy people.”

— Excerpted from Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894); Vie des Saints pour tous les jours de l’année, by Abbé L. Jaud (Mame: Tours, 1950).

St. Acathius
At Constantinople, St. Acathius, who, being denounced as a Christian by the tribune Firmus, and cruelly tortured at Perinthus by the judge Bibian, was finally condemned to death at Byzantium by the procunsul Flaccinus. His body was afterwards miraculously brought to the shore of Squillace in Calabria, where it is preserved with honor. — Excerpted from the Martyrology.

Saint Acacius was a priest at Sebaste, Armenia, during Diocletian's persecution. He was arrested and executed under the governor Maximus with seven women and Hirenarchus, who was so impressed with the devotion to their faith he became a Christian and suffered the same fate. — Excerpted from the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Patron: Against headaches and at the time of death's agony.

Symbols: Pictured with a crown of thorns.

The Word Among Us

Meditation: Acts 15:22-31

5th Week of Easter

Some … have upset you … and disturbed your peace of mind. (Acts 15:24)

It’s a common frustration. You buy something on eBay or from an online retailer or at the local hardware store. But when you begin to use the item, you discover that it’s defective—nicked, outdated, or missing a crucial bolt. The product can’t do the job you thought it could do.

In a way, this is why the new Christians of Antioch were upset. However, their disappointment centered not on a product but on the gospel! These Gentiles had joyfully believed the good news announced by Paul, but after him came other preachers who claimed that he had given them a deficient message. It wasn’t enough to believe in Jesus, they said: “Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved”

(Acts 13:48; 15:1). The Church’s leaders in Jerusalem ruled otherwise, and today’s reading quotes the letter in which they communicated their decision. Essentially, it was: No, you don’t need to observe the Mosaic law. Faith in Christ is what’s essential.

Christians no longer feel that they need to follow the Mosaic law. We believe that we are saved by the grace of a loving Father who wants to give us good gifts. At least, that’s what we believe. But when our daily crosses get a bit too heavy, when we’re tempted, drained, confused, or at a loss, we can begin to think that the gospel is deficient or defective in some way.

Jesus didn’t come to guarantee us health, wealth, and prosperity. He came to promise us one thing: “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). He is with us to guide us, to comfort us, and to encourage us. He has given us his Spirit so that we can stand tall, even when all around us seems to be falling apart. He gives us the same promise he gave to St. Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness”

(2 Corinthians 12:9).

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed today, step back, consider the big picture, and put your faith in Jesus. For you, as for those early Christians, it’s the path to peace of mind.

“Jesus, I see so many needs—mine, my family’s, those of the Church and the world. Help me to look up, trust you to provide, and receive the peace and assurance you want to give me.”

Psalm 57:8-10, 12; John 15:12-17

Regnum Christi

Loving to the Extreme

U. S. A. | SPIRITUAL LIFE | SPIRITUALITY

May 8, 2015. Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Father Edward Hopkins, LC

John 15:12-17

Jesus said to his disciples: "This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one´s life for one´s friends. 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. 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."

Introductory Prayer: I believe in you, O Lord, in your great love for me. You are my creator and redeemer. I trust in your friendship; I trust that you will share with me all the insights and desires to love as you have loved. I love you, Lord, for you have loved me first. I want to love you by helping to bring your love and life to others.

Petition: With the love of your heart, inflame my heart!

A New Commandment: “And can love be commanded?” Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI poses this very objection in his encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est.”. Love is not merely a sentiment; it is an act of will. “God does not demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of producing” (n. 17). We cannot be ordered to “like” someone or to “fall in love”, but we can “choose to love” our enemies. More importantly, when we experience God’s love for us, the joy of being loved leads us to want to respond to that love. And God has loved us first: “It was not you who chose me….” We experience his love for us as an ongoing reality each time we receive the sacraments, but also each time we reflect on the fact that he is keeping us in existence. This personal experience enables us both to understand love and want to share it.

Friends Forever: Like love, friendship is easily misrepresented in today’s world, for it is more than convenience, mutual tolerance or mutual utility. Friends not only share love, they share secrets and intimate knowledge. Love leads “to a community of will and thought” (idem). I want to know what my friend is thinking and desiring so that I can share in those thoughts and even satisfy those desires. “The love-story between God and man consists in the very fact that this communion of will increases in a communion of thought and sentiment, and thus our will and God´s will increasingly coincide: God´s will is no longer for me an alien will, something imposed on me from without by the commandments, but it is now my own will based on the realization that God is in fact more deeply present to me than I am to myself” (idem).

Chosen to Bear Fruit: Jesus’ commands are few, but they all have to do with love: “Do this in memory of me”; “Love one another”; “Love your enemies”; “Go and make disciples of all nations”, etc. The essential and urgent nature of this command of love is linked to the very mission of Christ. We are chosen and have been appointed to go and love others. If this love is authentic, grown from the vine of his love and great in sacrifice, it will bear fruit. The fruit which lasts, that for which he died, is an eternal life of friendship with God. What others most need from me then, is not material goods or consolation, or even my friendship, but an experience of God’s love for them, namely, knowledge of Christ. “Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave” (ibid., n. 18).

Conversation with Christ: Dear Lord Jesus, grant me a constant, growing desire to live your commandment of love. Awaken in me an awareness of your ever-present love in my life. Let this inspire me to love without measure, without distinction of persons, without fears of losing all that is less than love.

Resolution: I will choose to serve someone today, not because I feel the desire to do so, but for love of Christ.

Homily of the Day

May 8, 2015

Love One Another

John’s Gospel narrates the conversation Jesus had with his apostles at the Last Supper. He was aware of the plotting of Judas and the Jewish leaders. He would leave the supper room and enter into the hours of his passion and death. He realized he would be abandoned and denied by his own disciples. Yet there is no pleading with them “to please support me in my trials, to stay at my side, to give me of your strength in the hour of my weakness.” Through Chapter 15 of St. John’s Gospel we read that Jesus has a lack of interest for himself; his concern is only for his disciples and for others.

It’s true that while he was in the Garden of Gethsemane a few moments later, he did ask Peter, James and John to remain awake and to assist him with their prayers. However, this was the moment at which the devil’s temptation was strongest. For Satan was tempting Jesus to abandon his values, to refuse his Father’s bidding, to turn away from the path of suffering and death. At that moment Jesus needed the strength the apostles could win for him through their prayers. He begged the apostles therefore to remain awake and to pray. Yet even at that moment, when they failed him and slept while he was being buffeted by Satan’s temptations, his concern for them compelled him to excuse them. “The spirit is willing,” he reflected, “but the flesh is weak.”

Throughout the whole of Chapter 15 Jesus is concerned only about these men, his disciples. Listen to Jesus’ words and see where his concern lay. “Remain in me and let my words remain in you and anything you ask will be given to you.” “Go out and bear much fruit, fruit that will last and then the Father will give you anything you ask in my name.” “What I command you is to love one another.”

If only we could have this total disregard for self and this fullness of love for one another, what a happy world we could create!

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Regina Coeli

In Latin

In English

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COME, SPIRIT OF CRUCIFIED LOVE!