Sunday, May 9, 2004
5th Sunday of Easter

1st Reading: Acts 14:21-27

After proclaiming the gospel in that town and making many disciples, they returned to Lystra and Iconium and on to Antioch. They were strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain firm in the faith, for they said, "We must go through many trials to enter the Kingdom of God." In each church they appointed elders and, after praying and fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had placed their faith.

Then they traveled through Pisidia, and came to Pamphylia. They preached the Word in Perga and went down to Attalia. From there they sailed back to Antioch, where they had first been commended to God's grace for the task they had now completed.

On their arrival they gathered the Church together and told them all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the non-Jews.

2nd Reading: Rev 21:1-5

I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth had passed away and no longer was there any sea. I saw the new Jerusalem, the holy city coming down from God, out of heaven, adorned as a bride prepared for her husband. A loud voice came from the throne, "Here is the dwelling of God among mortals: He will pitch his tent among them and they will be his people; God will be with them and wipe every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the world that was has passed away."

The One seated on the throne said, "See, I make all things new." And then he said to me "Write these words because they are sure and true."

Gospel: Jn 13:31-35

When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. God will glorify him, and he will glorify him very soon.

"My children, I am with you for only a little while; you will look for me, but, as I already told the Jews, so now I tell you: where I am going you cannot come. Now I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

 

Commentary

"I give you a new commandment: love one another." You can be commanded to obey, to behave this way or that, but how can you be commanded to love? External behavior is subject to external rules, but how can the inner movement of our spirit be commanded? Can you be commanded to remember, or to forget, to think, to feel? How can you be commanded to love?

Meister Eckhart provided a key insight into this puzzling verse in the gospel. The command to love, he said, is not an external command but an inner one; it is an inner drive and urgency of our being. In "commanding" us to love, Jesus is telling us to look, to see our true nature and to follow it. It is like the inner urgency to eat when you are hungry, to drink when you are thirsty. "When I am thirsty, the drink commands me; when I am hungry, the food commands me. And God does the same. He commands me to such sweetness that the whole world cannot equal. And if a person has once tasted this sweetness, then indeed he can no more turn away with his love from goodness and from God, than God can turn away from His Godhead."

Read also Sundays Into Silence: The Volatile Ingredients of Conjugal Love

TOP