Keep My Word

Keep My Word

May 5, 2013

Sixth Sunday of Easter C

By Rev.   Joe McCloskey, SJ

“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.’”  Acts 15:27-29

Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.    Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.”  John 14:23-24

Piety

Jesus does not return in the Resurrection with the same old body that he had from Mary.   He returns with the resurrected body.   His humanity has been touched by the divinity and the fullness of his humanity has form.   He arrives with all the wonderful things he has done in his life focused in the good news that his life was worth living.   And he has the truth of all that he ever said in the simplicity of the peace he gave his Apostles in the fullness of the forgiveness that made them know they were forgiven for having betrayed him.   The wounds of his passion are now glorious in his resurrection.   Thomas can put his finger into the nail wounds that are part of this resurrected body and he can put his hand into his side.   He can believe.   It is really Christ who eats a meal with them so that food was appreciated without the terrible hungers that can drive one to eat beyond what they need.   Piety has a real meaning in the resurrected Christ who is the best of all of us even as he is the best of himself.   

Study

We study the Resurrection of Christ because life has its meaning in Christ.   He reveals to us our destinies.   We have the power to forgive sins because Christ offers us his life even as he augments our gifts with the meanings of life he gives us.   The Father wants us to make Christ real by our lives.   The best part of us is already in heaven in Christ.   We are the continuation of his life on earth in all the good things that we do with our lives.   Wherever we go, we bring Christ.   He lives on in us even as we live in him.   We know him in the breaking of the bread because real love involves sharing his meal with him as he in the very same act shares his life with us.   We are the Mystical Body of Christ.   He has no feet but ours.   He has no hands but ours. 

Action

The challenge of the Resurrection is to live our lives as if we were not meant for our world.   Even as we live the touch of the divine in our lives by God being part of our love whenever we love, he gives us our lives.   How we love is the masterpiece of our lives.   How we use the gifts of our lives is how we make real the Christ of our hearts.   Love is what makes our world go round.   Our efforts to make our world a little neater become his efforts when we do what we do in his name.   Our vocations in life are to be contemplatives in Action.   That means that we work in such a way that Christ is a hundred percent of all that we do.   Our Gospel says that what was written is so that we can believe.   Christ did so much more than what is written that his disciples were not able to share with us.   He likewise does so much more in our lives that we are unaware of that if we were to give credit to the wonders of creation around us we would not have time to go on living.   Eternity is the missing part of all that we do.