The life of the Risen Lord has been poured out into our hearts. This risen life has come into us. Our faith confirms what Jesus has done. His entry into life was without any exceptions. Nothing of the human condition was avoided. This included the horrifying crucifixion. It was real and he truly suffered and died. Jesus did not die an ordinary death. The manner and experience of Jesus' death is unfathomable to us. Jesus went to the extreme of human suffering and pain. We make a real choice to join our real pain and suffering with his, the first of many brothers and sisters to go the way of death. He asked us to follow him and we will. Not only the physical act of dying which is inevitable but the human choice to do it with Him. We choose to accept human life which Jesus crowned with endless risen life.
All of this comes about by way of the act of being Baptized into Jesus, our Messiah and Lord. We have died with Him and we now rise with Him. In the beautiful sacrament of our incorporation into Him, we have already lived and died and Rose. When Jesus had that conversation with Nicodemus about experiencing birth again, being born again; it is a phrase that we need to keep in the forefront of our thoughts. We are living a new life, and it is real, not symbolic or imaginary but a real new life! It was given to us by the Risen Lord. Easter is no small thing.
Love Monsignor
April 29, 2018 - Fifth Sunday of Easter (click and read)
“Remain in me,” Jesus tells his disciples repeatedly in the Gospel, and you “will bear much fruit” (John 15:4-5). He is the vine; his disciples, the branches. The vine and the branches work together to extend and expand over a large area and to bear fruit in abundance. All this is done under the guidance of the vine grower, God the Father, who prunes the vine to increase the amount of fruit it will bear. What a rich metaphor! But none of this will happen unless we remain in Jesus as Jesus remains in us. John explores this further in his first letter: “Those who keep his commandments remains in him, and he in them”. This is how we bear fruit. When we love God and one another by showing that love through our actions “in deed and in truth,’ Jesus remains in us and we in him. A wonderful example of this is found in the work of Saint Paul, still called Saul in the first reading. His work to build up the Church in the Gentile world has borne fruit now for two thousand years.
How can you bear fruit and in so doing witness to the presence of Jesus?