Reading of the holy gospel according to John 14:23-29
Jesus replied: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words. And the word you hear is not mine, but the Father who sent me. I have told you these things while I am among you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. He left you peace, my peace I give you; I do not give it to you as the world gives it. Do not let your heart be troubled or dismayed. You have heard that I said to you: “I am going away and I will come back to you.” If you loved me, you would be glad that I went to the Father, because the Father is greater than me. And I tell you now, before it happens, so that when it happens you will believe. Lord’s word.
Hello. Although without the consolation of the physical presence of Jesus, the disciple does not feel alone: he had predicted his absence and has prepared it with a double promise. He will return to as many as he has left provided with his Spirit. If we live today in the time of waiting for the Lord, there is no time to complain about his absence. We count on his Spirit and on the promise that he who loves us will return to us and will stay with us forever. But Jesus’ promise is not just consolation; entails a challenge, having to endure his absence without despairing of his coming, and a responsibility, letting the Spirit of Christ be the Lord of our lives.
The words of Jesus, which today’s Gospel has reminded us of, were said on the last day that Jesus spent with his disciples. The first instruction that Jesus leaves to his followers is that they do what he told them: those who love him, he says, will fulfill his demands. Jesus wants his own to love him, even if they don’t see him; he commands that they keep him in mind even when he is absent. The love that Jesus asks of his disciples, the one that he expects from us, is the practice of wanting from him: works are love. To tell the truth, what Jesus expects of the disciples he has left in this world is not too extraordinary; We too, in our interpersonal relationships, are not satisfied with mere words and expect those who love us to show us. And it shows his love who complies not only with our orders but, above all, with our wishes.
We often get excited about maintaining a good relationship with God, just because we pray well or because we have good feelings; because we feed good desires or because we tend to be promising a change of behavior that never comes. All this, despite our undeniable good will, does not make us know that we are loved by God. And it is that if we do not do what he expects of us, we will not feel loved by him nor will we perceive his tenderness.
Not the one who says “Lord, Lord” but the one who does his will, will feel loved by God. And because it is not very common among today’s Christians for there to be someone who has God’s will as the reason for his life, there is this great void of God in our world, about which we complain so much; we are becoming more alone, God no longer has his abode among us, because he does not find disciples who love him doing what he wants. Don’t get mad at him when he doesn’t.
we find each other; His last words will have to be taken more seriously: He who loves me will keep my word and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Only who neglects the will of God is felt for carelessness.
However, Jesus did not leave us only demands to meet, he promised us his spirit: that strength that was his encouragement and his courage, his enthusiasm and his understanding. If we do not have him in person, through his Spirit, he has not abandoned us. What’s more, with his Spirit, he also left us his peace… a peace that is on everyone’s lips, but that we can’t find in all hearts, not even in our own. And we, Christians, who have the peace of Jesus, the only one that pacifies man from within, by pacifying his desire for possession, by fulfilling his longing for survival, by curbing his desire for supremacy, we cannot hide fearful of our contemporaries. What we are experiencing in our world should arm us with hope and discover new tasks, commitments to be made. As long as peace is not a reality, we will not have fulfilled the mandate that Christ left us when he departed from us; until there is peace, we who believe that Christ left it to us as heritage have to do something.
Enjoy the presence of God in the Mass and in the family!
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