What if...? June 3

Piety

Jesus, you show great patience with us. After all you have done for us through your crucifixion, death, and resurrection to free us from our sins, you endure our questions that distract us from the true mission you have for each of us.

Give us wisdom so we don’t both you with trivial questions. Help us to live up to the individual tests that you have for us. Give us eyes, ears and and a heart to truly understand your message so that we may count ourselves among thsoe who can gaze upon your face. Then, grant us the fortitude to fulfill that mission. Amen.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/060306a.shtml

What concern is it of yours? John 21:23

Today’s readings reach the end of Acts and John’s Gospel. Paul, even in chains is proclaiming the Good News in Rome. Peter has his final encounter with Jesus. After hearing Jesus’ words on Peter’s own future, Peter asks about John.

Jesus resists saying anything definitive. Jesus replies with a rhetorical question. “What if…?”

This is not something Jesus does often in the Good News. While Jesus’ words often are hard to understand, while they stories and parables test our understanding, only one other time in John’s Gospel does Jesus ask the disciples a “What if…?” question. He does this when the disciples are having difficulty understanding a very early talk on Jesus as the bread of life following the miracle with the two barley loaves and five fish. Although here with Peter and John, Jesus doesn’t answer the question directly, the other time he does. In John 6:62-65, Jesus adds a teaching answer.

“What if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

The spirit gives life. The words Jesus has spoken are spirit and life. What if that’s the answer to the challenging question today? Jesus doesn’t want us to contemplate the immortality of John, but rather to remember that after Jesus returns to his heavenly dwelling place, we will have his words, which are the life-giving spirit. That would bring us back to the beginning, John 1:1-5:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

What if Jesus expects Peter and John and us to know the answer?

What if Jesus expects us to be concerned less with what will happen to others and more with how well we will each follow him and fulfill Jesus’ commandment to love one another?

What if John wrote down all the other stories of Jesus life? What if we spent all our time studying the Bible that we me never had time for Piety and Action?

What if we just follow Jesus and stop asking questions so we can be his witnesses to the ends of the earth?

What if Jesus just means: stop worrying, go out and get to work transforming the world with His love?

Action

There is a growing list of women for the 122nd Weekend at the Village of Mount Zion on June 22-25. Please work on your palanca early and often so that our sisters will know the importance of piety, study and action on their weekend and as they “go fourth” and return to the world. Pray for the team and the spiritual directors in these final weeks of formation.

http://arlingtoncursillo.org/CursillosSubweb/w122/w122.htm