Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - Repelling a Violent World

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 05-23-22 | Aux. Bishop R. Barron

[MurphsLaw]

SIXTH WEEK OF EASTER

JOHN 15:26–16:4A

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus predicts that his disciples can expect violence from their world.
“They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact,
the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.
They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.”

The “world” is that collectivity of persons, institutions, armies,
and nations predicated upon the loss of friendship with God.
That network will hate the followers of Jesus because it cannot frighten them,
and its success depends upon fear.

Jesus is about to be swallowed up by the forces of the world,
but he is not held captive or entranced by them, because he does not live in himself—
and hence in fear—but rather in the Father,
the power that conquers the world.

What Jesus wants his followers to experience is that same freedom and insouciance,
but it is participation in the coinherent dynamics of God’s being—
the insertion into the loop of grace that God is—that makes such liberating detachment possible.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Jesus said to his disciples:
“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,
he will testify to me.
And you also testify,
because you have been with me from the beginning.

“I have told you this so that you may not fall away.
They will expel you from the synagogues;
in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you
will think he is offering worship to God.
They will do this because they have not known either the
Father or me.
I have told you this so that when their hour comes
you may remember that I told you.”+++

[sauropod]

.

[ebb tide]

Speaking of a “violent world”, when will Boobie Barron voice his support for Archbishop Cordileone’s punishment of Nancy Pelosi’s violence against the unborn?

So far, he’s been silent.