SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER  – 2021

v  We are approaching the Ascension of the Lord, which we will celebrate on Sunday next week.   

v  Two weeks ago Jesus told us that he is the good shepherd, that he knows his own and his own know him

v  Last Sunday Jesus said that he is the vine and we are the branches. With this image he wanted to tell us that the life which we have is his own life.  

v  Today we will hear him telling us in the Gospel that we are slaves no more, but sons and daughters.  

FIRST READING – ACTS  10:25-26. 34-35. 44-48

v  Before meditating on this reading, let is see who was Cornelius and how God acts in completely unpredictable ways.

v  The author of Acts says that Cornelius was

o   A religious man who feared God

o   A prayer person

o   Generous toward the Jews

v  His desire to know the true God moves him to seek Peter.

v  When we read this passage, we discover other aspects of this man

o   He serves as a bridge between two worlds

o   In one of the two worlds the covenant is only for those who obey the law of Moses

o   In the other the covenant is for all who receive the gifts of faith, every human being, because these gifts are offered by God to all, it is up to us to accept or reject it. 

v  Cornelius helps to remind that God acts in unpredictable ways.

                           ******************

Ø  Peter goes to Cornelius home and there,  God makes the wonders we will read in this text.    

o   On arriving to the house Cornelius greets and pays homage to him.    

o   Peter tells him to stop because he is also a human being and not a God. 

o   Then Peter speaks to all and says that he realizes that God does not show preferences, he treats all of us equally

o   What an encouraging word, God loves all of us equally, he has created us and loves whatever he has made.  When we read the creation account in Genesis we find over and over the same refrain … and God saw that everything was good, very good.    

o   Anyone who acts honestly pleases God.   

Ø  Peter is still speaking    

o   When the Holy Spirit comes down on all those present  

o   The Jews who had been converted and had come with Peter, were astonished to see that   

o   The gift of the Spirit which they had received, was also poured out on Cornelius household      

o   Because they could hear them speak in tongues  

§  I have many times asked myself what is so important about speaking in tongues  

§  Maybe it can be a way to describe the wonders of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  

§  But it could be also that God in performing this sign wanted to let the little community of Cornelius household, which was being born, on whose members the Holy Spirit was poured upon, are part of the larger community of faith born after the resurrection of Jesus. 

§  When the Spirit is poured out upon us in the sacraments we do not see anything especial, any external sign, but in the interior of each one of us something great is happening, something that makes us speak new languages, that is to say, makes us  act in new and surprising ways.  .

§  But this does not happen overnight, it needs time to change us and shape us into the image of the only Son of the Father.   

Ø  Peter ponders

o   Can we deny baptism to those on whom the Holy Spirit had been poured out?  

o   All the people in the household are baptized   

o   Peter does not baptize them, but he asks those who have come with him to do it.   

o   Sometimes I think that here we have the explanation to the difficulty that some of our Christian brothers have about the baptism of children. Probably in that household there were children too.   

Ø  Peter has just admitted the first gentiles into the community of Jesus’ followers.  

Ø  How much we must be grateful to Peter and to the first followers of Jesus that they were attentive to the signs that Jesus, who was not with them in a visible way, was giving to them, to lead them in the formation of the ecclesial community.     

 RESPONSORIAL  PSALM  Ps  98: 1,2-3,3-4

THE LORD HAS REVEALED TO THE NATIONS HIS SAVING POWER

Sing to the Lord a new song,

For he has done wondrous deeds

His right hand has won victory for him, his holy arm

THE LORD HAS REVEALED TO THE NATIONS HIS SAVING POWER

The Lord has made his salvation known

In the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice

He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness

Toward the house of Israel.

THE LORD HAS REVEALED TO THE NATIONS HIS SAVING POWER

All the ends of the earth have seen

The salvation by our God

Sing joyfully to the Lord all you lands

Break into song, sing praise.

THE LORD HAS REVEALED TO THE NATIONS HIS SAVING POWER 

v  This psalm has the form of a hymn, an invitation to sing the wonders God has made.   

v  Hymns spring from a deep human need: to say in words the admiration before the divine works: creation or the historical events, the city of God and even   God himself.   (commentary to the psalms taken from the official version of  the Conference of Bishops from Spain, my translation.)     

SECOND READING   1Jn 4:7-10

Tradition has that John repeated over and over again to his disciples that they had to love one another as the Lord has loved us.

      In today’s reading John invites us to love one another because whoever loves has been begotten by God.   

      In our mind this is very clear, if God is love whoever can love is because he or she has been begotten by God, and wants to be like him, wants to be faithful to his or her nature. The difficulty comes in practice when our limitations interfere with our behavior.   

      If all of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus, all who have been reborn in the baptismal waters, made the commitment to live as the Lord has commanded us, took the resolution  to be faithful to our nature of children of God, what a different world we would have!

      John continues saying that the love of God has been revealed to us in that he has sent his Son   that the world could have life in him.    

      In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us.  

      I think that even if we meditate repeatedly on this truth, we will never grasp it completely.  

      Pope Francis like the Apostle John invites us to a universal love that includes all our brothers and sisters, all the human beings, 

GOSPEL  Jn 15: 9-17

·         This reading is taken from the words of Jesus after the Last Supper.  

·         Jesus asks us to remain in his love, as he remains in his Father’s love.   

·         His joy will remain in us, and thus our joy will be complete.  

·         His commandment is this: that we love one another as he has loved us.   

·         Such is his love that he has given his life for us, and in turn we are invited to give our life for others.    

·         Each one of us can look at his or her own life and discover in it how many ways we have had the opportunity to give our life for others.   

·         The opportunities are always present, the invitations from the Lord are always present too, we only must listen to, stop, make silence inside of us and, then we will be able to listen to the invitation: love as I have loved you.   

·         This is my commandment, but what will help you to live it is, if you do not see it as a commandment, but that you look at me, how I have lived among you, how I treated you and then go and do the same.     

 

CLARETIAN CORNER

 

Prayer to the Mother of the Divine Love (St. Anthony M. Claret)    

Mary, my Mother, Mother of the divine love!   

I cannot ask anything more pleasant to you  

And easier to grant  

That the divine love. 

Grant it to me my Mother   

My Mother, I am hungry and thirsty of love.

Help me! Satiate me!                                                                                                                                                                      .

Marian Text  – (Venerable Maria Antonia París)

… I told the Captain of the ship (that almost capsized on our way to Cuba)   to have great confidence in God and in Mary Most Holy  and not be afraid…  not to doubt that God and the most Holy Mary could save us. (Aut 149)

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CLARET, Anthony Mary. Autobiography.

LITTLE ROCK CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE – 2019

ORAR CON CRISTO ORANDO. Oraciones Claretianas (Claretian Prayers) – Roma 2004

PARIS, María Antonia. Autobiography in Escritos con comentarios e introducciones (Writings with commentaries and introduction by)    Juan M. Lozano. 1980.