HOMILY FOR
SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER May 17, 2020
Sometimes I
feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I
feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I
feel like a motherless child,
A long way
from home.
This 19th
Century black spiritual captures a feeling that you may be having during this
time of pandemic, of sickness and death, of isolation and distance from friends
and church community and relatives, of economic hardship and great loss. To feel like a motherless child is to feel
abandoned, vulnerable, lost.
In contrast in
the Gospel today Jesus assures us “I will not leave you orphans; I will come
to you.” With Jesus we are never,
ever alone. We are never like a
motherless child. We are deeply loved
and cared for.
Jesus declares
to us in the Gospel, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but
you will see me, because I live and you will live.” Jesus is not talking here about normal
physical life, but a much greater, deeper and more wonderful life: life in the
Holy Spirit.
Jesus
continues: “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father / and you
are in me / and I in you.” Jesus is
speaking of very deep intimacy. Of
spiritual union. This is what the life
of the Holy Trinity is like: Jesus in the Father, the Holy Spirit in Jesus and
in the Father, the Father in all. Jesus
is inviting us into the intimacy of God’s own inner, Trinitarian, life.
Jesus tells
us: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.” Love
is not about words, not about protestations, not about feelings. Love is about DOING. Observing the Lord’s commandment to love one
another is the way to love the Lord.
Jesus promises
us: “And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them,
and reveal myself to them.” We come
to know Jesus in loving Him, and the more we truly know Him, the more we love
Him. That overcomes any pandemic.
Jesus give us
great assurance in the Gospel today.
“I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” Simple, but great news, GOOD NEWS. AMEN.
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