“My Joy May Be in You” by Phil Russell

“My Joy May Be in You” by Phil Russell

Sixth Sunday of Easter Sunday

Piety

(Acts 10) Then Peter proceeded to speak and said, “In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.”

Study

(John 15:9-17) “As the Father has loved me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. 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. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.”

Action
(1 John 4:7-10) “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God.”

These readings, are one in the same as it was on this day (Sixth Sunday Of Easter) twenty-four years ago, when I made my Cursillo (M91). I remember, specifically “I have called you friends...It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain.”

I heard it with my heart as Fr. Joe McCloskey proclaimed that Gospel, that day, at Holy Spirit in Annandale. You see it struck me, because I sat at the Table of The Branches (because, “He Is The Vine!”). That, by the way was my favorite Scripture, still is.

So, that Sunday Closing, I was “full up.”  I knew that this was just a further part of that last conversation/teaching that Jesus shared with the disciples before going out to the “Garden” that Spring evening, when the Vines would be pushing out new growth, and the first pruning would begin.

I have been changed in the Lenten/Easter Season, since today is the “8” week mark of my youngest son’s death, unexpectedly. I never doubted God’s love in any of this. He was saying to me “now remain in my love.” I had to “Lean in Closer.” And true in this Post-Resurrection era, we lean into the “BOC.”

The Body of Christ.

Isn’t that the very challenge and essence of the 4TH DAY?

Now in both personal loss and sorrow, I truly have the need for “Joy.” It is in that “Joy” as “Beloved” that I am able to Study and Affect my environment. This is where I “abide in The Vine.”

This is ever more the reason to “lean on” my Brothers in my own Group Reunion.  

And this is where in “Joy” that I can say “Thank You” to the Cursillo Community for the tremendous outpouring of “The Love of Jesus” with which we were comforted.

So, 24 years later, I take up my Cross and say: “And I am counting on Christ!”

De Colores!