VIth Sunday of Easter

VI-SUNDAY OF EASTER. Acts 10: 25-26, 34-35, 44-48; 1 John 4: 7-10; Gospel: John 15: 9-17 Dr. Tony Campolo is a well-known and highly-respected, inspirational speaker. Over the last several years, Tony Campolo has spent much of his time traveling around the world on speaking tours. Meanwhile, his wife, Peggy, has chosen to stay home and give herself and all that she has to the "Bringing Up" of their two children, Bart and Lisa. On those rare occasions when Peggy does travel with Tony, she finds herself engaged in conversations with some of the most accomplished, impressive, influential, sophisticated people in the world. After one such trip, Peggy told Tony that sometimes as she visits with these powerful people... she finds herself feeling intimidated and sometimes even questioning her own self-worth. Tony said to her: "Well, honey, why don't you come up with something you could say when you meet people that will let them know that you strongly value what you do and you feel that it is dramatically, urgent and crucial and important. Well, not long after that, Tony and Peggy Campolo were at a party... when a woman said to Peggy in a rather condescending tone, "Well, my dear, what do you do?" Tony Campolo heard his wife say: "I am nurturing two Homo Sapiens into the dominant values of the Judaeo-Christian tradition in order that they might become instruments for the transformation of the social order into the kind of eschatological utopia God envisioned from the beginning of time." And the other woman said: "O, my, I'm just a lawyer." There are a lot of important jobs in the world today but not one of them is more important than the job of being a mother. This Sunday, the second Sunday in May, has been officially designated as "Mother's Day" since May 9, 1914. But in England as far back as the 1600's there has been a tradition of a "Mothering Sunday." Originally it was born out of the Catholic celebrations of Mary, the Mother of Christ. Birth of a child makes a woman a mother, and even if she had been mother to other children, she becomes mother to this new one too. On this Mother’s day let’s gratefully remember our own mothers who sacrificed their comforts for their children, sacrificed sleepless nights for the health of their babies. Let’s pray for women who refuse to give birth to children for selfish reasons, that they may come to appreciate and embrace the dignity of motherhood. Let’s also remember women who wished they had their own biological children, but could not due to biological or health reasons, but choose to be spiritual mothers to many by their actions. Today's Gospel fits right in, since it's all about Jesus' command that we love one another as He loves us. The parallel between God's love and our mothers' love seems to fit so perfectly. Jesus says that those who believe in him and obey his commandment of love “remain in, God and God in them. We can have two kinds of relationships with God. 1) A servant – master relationship. 2) A friend to friend relationship. In the Bible, doulos, the slave, the servant of God was no title of shame; it was a title of the highest honor. Moses was the servant of God (Deut. 34: 5); so was Joshua (Joshua 24: 29); so was David (Psalm 89: 20). It is a title which Paul counted it an honor to use (Titus 1: 1); and so did James (James 1: 1). The greatest men in the past had been proud to be called the douli, the slaves of God. With the exception of mystics, traditional lay spirituality in the church has usually followed the master-servant model. But Jesus says: "I have something greater for you yet. You are no longer slaves; you are friends." This seems to indicate that he called them servants until then. Christ offers an intimacy with God which not even the greatest men knew before Jesus came into the world. The idea of being the friend of God also has a biblical background. Abraham was the friend of God (Isaiah 4 1: 8). In Wisdom 7: 27, Wisdom is said to make us the friends of God. Jesus has called us to be his friends and the friends of God. Jesus has given us this intimacy with God, so that he is no longer a distant stranger, but our close friend. The primary reason Jesus calls us his friends is that he shared with us the secrets from the Father. A master doesn’t share his secrets with servants, but with friends. Our relationship with Christ goes through different stages. First it starts off as a master-servant relationship when we are new to the faith, but then as our relationship with Christ deepens it changes into a less formal friend-friend type of relationship. Today's gospel is a call for us to move beyond the infant stage, the servant-master relationship, and go over to the adult stage, the friend-friend way of relating to Christ. This will change the way we pray and the way we live. We shall begin to pray better (John 15:7) and to experience more peace and joy in our lives, as people do who are in love. The key to remain in his love is to keep his commandments. A servant obeys commands out of fear and a friend obeys commands out of love for the friend. All God's commandments come from love and from the goodness of His nature,” said Meister Eckhart, “for if they did not come from love they would not be God's commandments. For God's commandment is the goodness of His nature, and His nature is His goodness in His commandment.” Some of the interpretations of the Sabbath laws were not born out of love. That is why Jesus broke the Sabbath laws often to teach them the true meaning of the Sabbath. God is love (1 John 4:8; 4:16), so God’s commandments must be acts of love. Yes, God loves and accepts us as we are, but God loves us too much to leave us as we are. We love babies as they are, yet we want them to grow up. God expects us, similarly, to grow in His love. The Lord's offer to us of friendship and intimacy with him should not be an excuse for callousness and indifference. When I choose to vote for a candidate who is against the freedom to practice God’s commandments, I am indifferent towards God’s commandment and don’t choose to remain in him. Because Jesus said if you keep my commandments you will remain in my love. So it becomes a Catholic obligation to learn about each candidate what they choose to stand for. Do they stand to defend justice and religious freedom, do they stand to respect life in all its stages, do they stand to defend family values ? You may not find a candidate who is best in all of these. But when it is difficult to choose you need to weigh in according to the priorities of values. Choose the lesser evil. Let’s not shirk of the duty in this. Remember, Hitler won by just one margin of vote. And how that changed the history of the world we know. So, each vote counts for the future of the country. Our Bishop will soon issue a circular guideline on the HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization and abortion inducing drugs. In an unprecedented way, the federal government will force religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching and will purport to define which religious institutions are “religious enough” to merit protection of their religious liberty. Failing to comply with these regulations will incur a very heavy fine on the religious institutions. These features of the “preventive services” mandate, amount to an unjust law. If this mandate takes effect, religious liberty in this country will not be any better than the religious liberty in Iran. So, let us pray that may not happen. Let’s develop a genuine love for the commandments of the lord so that we may remain and dwell in his love.