May 10
[media presentation below]
GospelThink
Sunday, May 10, Sixth Sunday of Easter
JOHN 14:15-21
The Advocate
Prayerthoughts
a. What are the most important commandments for me at the present time?
b. The Advocate in John’s Gospel is the continued presence on earth of the Jesus who has returned to the Father. Or, as we have come to believe, the Holy Spirit. I should take the time right now to give thanks to God for God’s guidance in my life.
c. The Spirit of truth is a moral force put into a person’s life by God. In what areas of my life have I seen this moral force at work?
d. Therefore, God has not left us orphaned. We are encompassed by God in everything that we do. In what area of my life and in the life of the world do we need God’s presence at the present time. Take the time to ask for it.
e. God’s relationship with us is one of love. In what area of my life have I seen most the love of God for me?
f. My prayerthoughts…
Today, I will read Acts of the Apostles 8:5-8,14-17 and write an important thought from it.
Some Thoughts on the Liturgy
One of the stories I use when I am asked to speak to youth comes from the Student Council Workshop of Kansas. It is probably the best speech I have ever heard from a young person. She was one of our “junior counselors”—a graduated senior who helped us with the individual councils that were set up for the workshop. She was asked to talk on “If I had it to do over…” She entitled her speech: “If I had it to do over, I would never leave anyone lonely, especially John.”
She went on to tell her story. There is a method of discovering what the student body suggests about the school called the “10 on 10” method. You give 10 questions to each student council member, then give the names of 10 students in the school chosen at random, ask those 10 questions, take down the notes, and take it back for discussion to the student council meeting.
She found nine of the students right away, but could not find the tenth one, a senior, and decided to forget it, and go with what she had. But on the day of the meeting, she saw the senior in the hallway, and went over to him asking him the questions. At first, he did not have a lot of answers and did not seem interested, but the more she asked, the more he warmed up to her questions, and began to talk—a lot. She was quite taken with his answers, was taking notes, and then realized that they had been speaking for a long time. She looked at her watch, seeing that she had missed a whole class.
The senior saw her look at her watch, and told her, “I see you have to go. Before you go, I want to show you something.” He reached in his pocket, pulled out a revolver, showed her that it was loaded, and put it back in his pocket. He said, “Don’t be afraid. I won’t use it now, but was about to—somehow. But I’m not now, because of you. No one has ever talked to me the way you have today, like I am worth something. Thank you.” And he walked away. She never saw him again. He never graduated. It was like he just dropped out of life. She closed her speech with the words, “John, wherever you are, I will talk with you.”
Loneliness: it affects all of us. The tragedy of that speech was that the speaker, the junior counselor, was actually the most lonely of all. I told the story about three years later at a leadership conference and one of the teachers at the young lady’s former high school came up to me, and told me what happened to her. She died of anorexia a year after she gave the speech—by herself, with no one around.
Jesus recognized that concept of loneliness in his lifetime. In today’s Gospel, he says:
I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
Jesus assures us that he is present to us. Therefore the follower of Jesus has no reason to be lonely.
I see two applications here. The first, having to do with our own loneliness. We must recognize the fact of loneliness, identify it in our lives, get help if we need it, but especially—what the Lord wants of us—turn to the Lord with the assurance that he is with us by means of the Holy Spirit. This makes faith a dominant factor in our lives. Right there—a relationship with God—is the ultimate way to overcome all loneliness.
And secondly, I believe that as Christians, we have the obligation to address the loneliness of others. Often there are family members who are hurting because they feel lonely. We know that, and we know that we could help if we wanted to. Perhaps we need to take the time to reach out to them with a card or a telephone call or the like. Also outside of our families among our friends, especially our younger people, there is loneliness. We must take the chance and open ourselves to others at times especially the people that we see are lonely. Christians should desire to address loneliness in others in whatever way they can.
We are not the kind of people who like to be lonely. Jesus knew that life without God is loneliness, and so he addressed it, and told us how to take care of it by a relationship with God. It enables us to truly say and mean that we really do not have to be lonely. The Lord has not left us orphans: he is with us!
Jesus said to his disciples, “Let is go back to Judea.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?” Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go back to die with him.” |
Gospelthink: Toward the end of my life on earth, I was aware of my upcoming death and my Apostles wanted to help. As I think of my death, what are the most important things I should do?
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The situation was dire. As the opening text of the movie gave the true history, during World War II the British and French armies had over 400,000 soldiers stranded on Dunkirk as they waited for the miracle of a rescue or until they died/ The movie “Dunkirk” is the story of how some 338,000 were rescued, even though the leaders of the Allied forces felt that only 30,000 coulde possibly be saved. (Historically, for some reason, Hitler and his staff decided not to massacre the soldies who were stranded in the open at Dunkirk.) The men expected at any moment to die, and were grabbing every opportunity they could to determine some escape. |
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In John’s Gospel, Jesus was determined to go to Jerusalem even though he had recently encountered significant opposition to his message. He knew that people had threatened to kill him, and he knew the consequences of his decision. It is interesting to see the couorage of the apostles at that moment in Jesus’s life. No matter what their eventual feelings about their Master’s death, at this moment, they were willing to die. Death was not a pleasant thought for them, but realiaing the importane of Jesus in their lives, they felt that giving up their lives was a way for them to truly follow Jesus.
For the thousands who were trapped on the shores of Dunkirk during the early stages of the Second World War as portrayed in the movie “Dunkirk,” death was almost a “given” if they could not find a way back to safety. No doubt many of the men thought of death as a possibility to do whatever they could to save themselves, nut if they were thinking as Christians, they were making themselves ready to die so that eternal life would be theirs.
Perhaps one of the great facts of living is that we all must die, and further, that some orf those deaths will not be easy—as disease and unfortunate circumstances like war and so forth will make our passing more difficult. But just as certain as death, one of the great facts of Christianity is that we will have the ultimate reward of true life we we try to earn it in our earthly lives.
Christianity is a hopeful religion. Christians know with absolute certainty that they will have eternal happiness after our lives here on earth as long as we are trying to live the Christian life that Jesus gave us. |
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PRAYER Good and gracious God, Your disciples were willing to die with Your Son in their earthly lives. Give us the grace to understand better our own deaths, and to accept them with the true understanding that You are our ultimate goal. Be with us, we pray. |
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+++++ GUIDE FOR CLASSROOM PRESENTATION AND PERSONAL ENRICHMENT Theme:
For
most of us, the thought of death is obviously not
pleasant, but it is the gateway to eternal life. 2. If you knew that you were going to die soon, how should you prepare yourself? 3. In general, do you believe that Christians think about death in a positive way? Yes or no and why? 4. In your opinion, do most Christians "prepare" for death in the way they live? Yes or no and why? 5. What is your definition of "hope"? 6. If you would give one way to live the Christian life while here on earth well, what would it be? |
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©2007
Capuchin Province of Mid-America |