SIXTH SUNDAY OF THE EASTER - YEAR C

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER – YEAR C: (Acts 15:1-2, 22-29; Rev 21:10-14, 22-23; John 14:23-29) Theme: As Resurrected Christians, Let us “be in” the shelter of the Lord Reflection: God Pitches His Tent Amidst Us - We are in the six Sunday of Easter. This long celebration of Easter joy encourages to be with the risen Lord. This is the time to make a decision of coming out of our earthly belongingness. With the Easter strength and hope, we learn to break open the earth and its passions and pleasures, which often misguiding and trouble creating, and thus resurrect from it. We do not belong to the earth or to this world anymore because we are risen with the Lord and the risen Lord is not of this world but of the heavenly world. We carry in us and along with us both the joy and the task of the Easter celebration: Joy of being risen with Jesus and the task of being risen people. The Christian task of being risen people is reminded everyday and every week in the liturgical celebrations. The present Sunday, the present week, we are renewed to take up upon ourselves the task: the task is to be in the shelter of the Lord always because we are risen with the Lord. - Being in the shelter of the Lord is not our human merit but the merit of Jesus Christ who has opened to us the possibility of entering into the heavenly house. What is the heavenly house? It is the eternal presence of the Lord. If we allow ourselves the Lord to enter into our life, our life itself becomes the heavenly house. Indeed, the eternal desire of the Lord is this: to stay with his people and in his people. He has expressed his desire of “living” with his people, or making his shelter among his people, long ago and from the beginning of time. We can see the glances of the shelter of Lord in the people of Israel. The Lord, Yahweh, who wills to be always with and for his people, makes himself a pillar of cloud, and thus brings all his people under his shelter. It is with the shadow of his presence that he leads them into the promised land. The people of Israel have journeyed for very many years under the shelter of the Lord and thus finally reached to their freedom in the promised land. The life and the journey of Israel, God’s chosen and beloved people, is only the pre-figuration and the preparation for the eternal journey of the entire world into the shelter of the Lord. The promise of the Old Testament is realized. The preparation has been completed. The time has come finally. God’s promise is that he would remain with his people forever. The preparation of the way for Lord and its fulfillment is now complete. Finally Jesus Christ, the Word of God, has come into the world. It is in Jesus Christ, his eternal and only begotten Son that God has made his permanent shelter among his people. God made himself one of us. God has come down to be with us. His immense love for the humanity made him to belittle himself and to appear in the human form. All this is to realize his desire of becoming a “shelter” for the man and the world. Thus God becomes ever “Emmanuel”, God-with-us. Thus God builds his house among us. All this happens in and through Jesus Christ. St. John reminds us the significance of Jesus’ birth: “God pitched his tent amidst us” (Jn 1:14). - In the mission of Jesus – in his birth, life, death and resurrection, and sending of the Holy Spirit – God has established his shelter permanently in the world and for the man. All these events of Jesus Christ on earth are included and manifested in the great Eucharistic Action. It is with the entrustment of his body and blood that Jesus makes his presence in the world until the end of times. Eucharistic presence – the ever living presence of the Lord amidst humanity – is already initiated in the Incarnation when Jesus assumes the human nature and enters into it for being very closer to the humanity. The same presence is made permanent in the Cross and resurrection. The same presence is being manifested every time when the Eucharistic celebration takes place in the “memory of the Lord”. Bringing into memory of all that Jesus has said and done is the work of the Holy Spirit who is given to us by the Risen Lord. Thus with the sanctifying grace and empowering work of the Spirit the Lord continues to offer the possibility of staying in his shelter. Not only to the small group of disciples and few followers of Jesus, but it is extended to everyone. God opens the space for everyone without any differences and barriers. It is the in the reach of every man who wills to be with the Lord. Readings: Love is the Foundation of God’s Home in the World - The shelter of the Lord, the sending of the Holy Spirit, the remembrance of Jesus are the important words found in today’s gospel. Yet they do not stand separated. They are not mere individual words. They are very closely connected with the knot of love. The bond between them can be comprehensible if we enter into the reflection of the passage. Jesus exclaims: “those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (v.23). It is love for the Lord that makes his presence possible. God becomes our home when we love him. Love has the immense power of uniting. It unites not only two bodies and two minds, in the physical and psychological spheres, but also unites two hearts in the spiritual level. True love brings an unbreakable union between the persons. Such a love is the basement for the coming together and above all for being together. Indeed, it is this unconditional love that made God to come down and stay with the humanity. He makes his tent in the midst of man and he continues his presence with him. He expresses and manifests his love for man in various ways. He waits with patience for man’s response of reciprocity. Although, often his partner, the man, fails to recognize the love and neglects it because of his immersion in the worldly things, God still offers the shelter of his home to him just because love does not turns back. It is purely because of his love that God has come down to the humanity. When the humanity loves and observes God’s words, God is ever ready to extend his wings of his presence. This is the assurance of Jesus in today’s passage. With true love man can make God come down and stay with him. Other way round, God is very eager to make his home with the one who calls on him with love. - The discourse continues. God comes and makes his home with us. It is the Spirit of the Lord that makes the heavenly home possible on earth and in the life of each lover of the Lord. Love makes possible the coming of the Holy Spirit. God never abandons his people. He never removes his tent from us. He never throws us out of his home. His home is eternal. It is always with us. The home – the presence of the Father and the Son – is now made available to the humanity with the descending of the Holy Spirit. Now the shelter of the Lord is present in the teaching and in the remembrance that the Spirit provides. Jesus assures us again the fruit of love – the Holy Spirit: “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (v. 26). The Holy Spirit is the fruit of love between the Father and the Spirit. The same Spirit creates a bond of love between God and man by his work of reminding us of the presence – the shelter – of Jesus who has established it and left it for our living. Since the Spirit is the fruit of love, wherever people are in love he is present in them and with them and thus makes possible the home of the Lord. His teaching and his reminding has a destiny: a destiny of creating the home of love (shelter of the Lord) amidst the believers and followers. This the reason why the entire last discourse of Jesus rotates around the intimacy of love, in the particular manner in the Gospel of St. John. Even though today’s gospel passage appears only in few verses (23-29), its message is concentrated on the loving home that God establishes and continues in the midst of humanity, in the heart of each and every one of us. Conclusion: We are “the home” for the World - In the world there is more absence than presence of the Holy Spirit. In the precise words: the world is blocking the presence and work of the Spirit with pride and arrogance. What are the symptoms that the Holy Spirit is lacking in the world? The symptoms are found in the various forms: the attitude of defense, of fear and of confusion instead of openness, of recognizing and accepting the other; the attitude of creating circles, groups and borders instead of respect, equality and justice; the attitude of institutionalism and formalism where the laws and formalities have their say instead of opting for the human values and working for the profound needs of the society. On the other way, with the presence of the Spirit there will be the peace, justice and unity. And all these are compressed in one word: love. There is also the presence of the Spirit. There are people who offer themselves for the wellbeing of others – the human society. They go out to meet all the hardships and fight against the injustices and stand for the truth, only because they love – they love their life as the gift of God to live for others. But these people who make visible the presence of the Spirit are few in number. Their presence and work is often considered as futile and not of the standards to the growing world. Their humility appears as their helplessness. Their meekness appears as their weakness. Their love is treated as the selfishness by the world. - The world with its innovative ideologies, philosophies, sciences and technologies offer to us different shelters. They seem very attractive and beautiful. Often we become victims for this. We feel that we are fortunate to be in the modern world with innumerable possibilities of life. All these are indeed necessary for the human growth. But often we fail to understand that there is another aspect: the spiritual growth. In the hurried and competitive life we forget that we are losing our spirit, which means, we are losing our inner happiness, joy and peace. The absence of these virtues is the absence of the Spirit. We are covered by many other false shelters. Thus we become only the people who look well externally but internally losing our true life. Is there still possibility of getting into the home of the Lord amidst there confusing and conflicting situations? Yes, indeed. We have the possibility. Jesus is always available for us. His presence is made reachable in the Eucharistic celebration. In it and through it he speaks to us and he gives himself to us. He wills to come to be with us. He will that we also come to stay with him. Just one step towards him is enough. Jesus takes many steps to meet us. The Easter time reminds us this: the Risen Jesus visits us to be with us and to make his eternal home in us. Let us realize this and listen to him. Let us transform our love for the world and its passions into the love for Jesus and his presence. The Lord comes to make his home with us. In turn, we become homes of love for others. - We are “house of God” for others: Our God is the One who feels one with us and comes down to meet us. In his love he is with us. He becomes our home. We are called to be in this home by the Risen Lord. The closed doors of this heavenly home are opened and the entrance is made possible by his death and resurrection. We have our identity of being in the house of the Lord. The Christian identity of being in the house of the Lord entrusts us also with the task of becoming ourselves “a loving home” for others and for the world. let us take up this task and set out to open the doors of our love so that we become truly the risen Christians. Therefore, as the Risen Christians we have to stay in the house of the Lord and become “a shelter” for the others. Alleluia.