Reflections on Scripture | Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Join Msgr. Don Fischer as he reads and delivers a short reflection on today’s gospel, followed by 3 1/2 minutes of contemplative music and a closing prayer. Msgr. Don hopes that today’s reflection on the gospel will empower you to carry the Word in your heart throughout the day.
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5-12-23 Reflections on Scripture | Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Gospel
John 15:12-17
Jesus said to his disciples:
"This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one's life for one's friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.”
Reflection
There is something about trusting a friend and being able to reveal to them things that we know and that we feel. Jesus used that as an example of His relationship with us. But you can't fully grasp it until you realize what Jesus is doing. For the first time in the history of the human race, He’s revealing the fullness of who God really is.
What a thing to tell the world. Jesus, the man, the human side of Him was hearing all this for the first time in a sense, and he shared it with people because He knew how transformative it was and how different it was from the fullness of the Old Testament, which didn't get close enough to revealing the fullness of who God really is.
We need to bask and live in this new knowledge with an open heart.
Closing Prayer
Father to know you is to fall in love with you, and to fall in love with you is to know what life is for and how we are to live. So we know that your love is never conditional on our performance, but rather, in a sense, the reward of our belief that you are the lover you say you are. You are the healer in all of us that we now possess. Let us feel the joy and the peace that that brings. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.