intentional commitment, continued

Thursday of the

Fifth Week of Easter

May 14th

(With apologies, I will ignore the saint’s day once more, in order to maintain the reading continuity. It is however heart-warming to think that Matthias is a major saint of whom we know almost nothing,except that he sort of won a lottery which, depending which tradition you read, either cost him his life or led him to a long life of faithful service but kept him close to the heart of God).

READING: John 15: 9-11

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

~~~

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

REFLECTION

Jesus continues to explore the theme of intentional commitment, “remain.” “Remain in me.” If we remain, then we can love. And most of us fall short. Most of humanity falls short. Ask Anne, ask those who work with me, do I embody love? Ha! Do you?

Yet Jesus chose and appointed us. With all our grottiness and snappiness and spiritual lackadaisicality (if that’s a word). With all our scar tissue and self-centredness and God really does know what else. And all we can do is stumble along trying by the grace of God to find the discipline that gives us the strength to touch the lives that God draws across our paths, to bear by the invasion of the Paraclete Spirit of Jesus the love of Jesus to the ones that Jesus calls us to love. By the help of God to love all “the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed … countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse / an’ … every hung-up person in the whole wide universe” because that’s who Jesus calls us to love, and that’s who the Spirit within us can help us love, even though we fall short.