OMELIE / Omelie EN

19 mag 2019

19/05/2019 – 5th Sunday of Easter - C

19/05/2019 – 5^th Sunday of Easter - C

Reading 1 ACTS 14,21-27 * Psalm 144 * Reading 2 RV 21,1-5 * Gospel JN 13,31-33.34-35

The short passage from the gospel makes us stop in the room of the last Supper in a moment of the greatest intimacy. Judas has left; therefore Jesus opens up with greater confidence: close by there is no longer the weight of a closed heart, bringing the desire for money, set to act on its own hidden decisions without asking for His advice. Judas has left in order to follow the plans of the Devil, the enemy who has death at his command. Jesus knows then that the final moment has come for His love offer to the Father, that the goal of His life has been reached, that it is the moment His “behold, I come to do your will, O God” is realizing. The will for love of the Father, His “glory”, is about to show.

The Father’s glory is all in the Son, who shows the beauty and the greatness, the wisdom and the sanctity of a wonderful love, unheard of, respecting men's freedom to the very bottom, to the point of giving Himself up with a gift with no limitations. Father and Son are showing one another in the only love fully become true, without limits. Jesus offers Himself, and the Father will raise Him up right away, showing His own huge enjoyment of the Son's offer and His own unity with Him. Jesus enjoys that “right away” of God’s, who, as the prophet Hosea says, happens on the third day, and He tells the disciples about it, who are distraught by Judas’s leaving.

A little time is left, the last few hours. Jesus knows it and He says it clearly. It is the moment for the last confessions and the last recommendations, those which the Lord has most at heart.

He wished and wants that His disciples too give glory to the Father, so to take also part in His glorification. This can happen when they take part in the fullness of His love. Jesus therefore tells His most precious words, His “commandment”, the summary and the goal of the whole teachings He has given in different ways. This word is new, it is heard for the first time, makes new those who will live it, remains always new: “love one another”. The commandment of love is old: you shall love your God, you shall love your neighbor. The news is in “one another”; the news is in the communion that happens among those who not only make an effort to love, but also accept humbly to be the object of someone else’s love. To be able to wash your brother’s feet or a stranger's is a great sign of love, but it does not establish yet communion among men. This is there when not only we are ready to wash other people’s feet, but we accept that others do the same to us. It is necessary to have humility, meekness, esteem of the brethren. To accept to be treated as little people, to be unable, to need help and correction, to accept that others suffer for us, this is the behavior that lets communion to be established. This is not even enough: Jesus adds “as I have loved you”. The way to love one another is not up to us to decide. “As I have loved you”! Jesus is setting Himself as an example, not only in His symbolic gesture to wash the disciples' feet, but also in the completeness of His love, that is reached on the cross. The word “as”, in addition, does not only set the model of the love to imitate, but it is also meant to give the reason for this: “because I have loved you”! We love not because we are good, not because the others deserve it, but because Jesus has loved us. Our love, from this moment on, becomes free, selfless and, we could even say, divine.

Living this love we enter a new city, the one coming down out of heaven and hosts inside its walls God Himself. “He will dwell with them and God himself will always be with them as their God”, says the “loud voice from the throne”. God lives among Jesus’ disciples: you can see it from the love that they practice towards one another! Tears in this way can be wiped by Him and He can “make all things new”.

The city coming from heaven becomes visible on this earth when Jesus’ disciples gather to praise and to celebrate the mysteries of the faith, the mysteries coming from the cross and from the Risen Jesus' mouth. In order to make gathering easier and to make it faithful and lasting even in the moments of temptation and difficulty, the disciples are organized by Paul and Barnabas in the cities in which the gospel had been preached: Derbe, Lystra, Iconium and Antioch. In order to finish their work the two missionary disciples go back to the community that has sent them in order to report on everything: this also is an act of humble love, fruit and source of unity for the whole Church. In this way the Lord Jesus has been glorified by the ones who loved Him! Love and gospel is also then the organization of the different ministries in the Church, the city coming from heaven “as a bride adorned for her husband”.