Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 10, 2020: Let yourselves be built up into a spiritual house...

Let yourselves be built up into a spiritual house…

How do we build up the Body of Christ?

  Jesus’ Last Supper Discourse, in John’s Gospel, aims to give his disciples a path to follow, a sense of what they will be dealing with once he has died, risen and ascended.  He tells them he is going to prepare a place for them in His Father’s house, to enable their access to the very heart of God the Father.  Jesus, the perfect revelation of God, is the way, the truth, and the life, and it is our union in him that draws us into the perfect love shared by the Father and the Son and, ultimately, into perfect union with God.  But first, we must learn as best we can to be a revelation of that love in this world through our communal existence as the Body of Christ.

  The early Christians did not always find this easy to do.  In the Acts of the Apostles, the Twelve call together the community of the disciples in order to appoint seven reputable men whose job it would be to ensure that no one in the community would be neglected in the daily distribution.  These men manifest the love of God to the whole community through their shepherding of a people trying to find their way.  In so doing, they are building up the church. The First Letter of Peter exhorts the Christian community to let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, serving as living stones through their baptism into Christ, which gave them a life they did not have before, and through it, access to eternal life.  As living stones, they, like we, must serve one another; we must be life-giving as God to others, who loves justice and right (Psalm 33), is life-giving to all.

  In the spiritual house that is the Body of Christ, Jesus is our cornerstone; all other living stones are necessary to the structure so that together we can be one church united in God’s love.  To fulfill our charge as living stones, we must do as Jesus did, trying to live and grow in the context of that shared existence, embodying his gospel of love, mercy and compassion, confident that we are following the path Christ offers as the way, the truth, and the light, a sure path that leads to perfect union in the Lord.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 14, 2017: How can we know the way?

How can we know the way?

Are you an active member of the living church of Christ?

   In his Last Supper Discourse before his death, in John’s Gospel, Jesus laid out a plan for the disciples to follow, a plan that indicates that they will now be charged to take on all that Jesus has taught them and make it their own:  whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, he says.  The disciples’ way of living, their way of looking at life, is about to change radically because of the truth that Jesus is revealing to them – because of his ministry, his word, his death, and his rising.  Jesus, who is perfect love, is the way, the truth, and the source of all life; all is revealed in him.  To be a living church, the disciples must choose to believe in that truth; they must choose to embrace his way, choose to live as though they are not afraid, so that love can flow from them at all times.  They must trust, as Psalm 33 exhorts them, in the works of the one who loves them, and act in his stead. This is how they will become church, a living body, the Body of Christ.

   In Peter’s second letter to the Christian diaspora, those who follow Jesus’ way – for Way will become the designation for the official church – are called to become living stone, extraordinary as that sounds, through faith and obedience.  Invited by God out of darkness and into his wonderful light, the disciples must become a spiritual house, true church, conscious members of the community that will later be known as Christian.  To be a living stone is extraordinary, possible only because Jesus, the first living stone, was himself extraordinary:  through our communal activity as church, we give concrete evidence of spiritual connection we share, the bond that holds us together, and of the extraordinary source of our very way of being.  It is from this place of community that we can, as the first disciples in Acts, remain obedient to the faith, always filled with the Spirit and wisdom.

   Know this:  to live as a member of the extraordinary living church of Christ, we have simply to follow his way… his example of perfect love on earth.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  Wordle