Reflection on Today’s Readings, 6th Sunday of Easter, May 22nd, 2022
Texts: Acts 15:1-2,22-29; Psalm 67:2-3,5,6,8; Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23; John 14:23-29
Many a time it is very easy to be deluded, thinking that we love Jesus Christ just because we bear the name Christian, just because we go to church regularly, receive Holy Communion regularly, attend church programmes. We may be doing all these and yet not keep the word of Jesus Christ. We may just be consoling ourselves with those things we do apart from keeping His words. If we do all that and yet do not keep His words, they have all lost their purposes. We go to Church to listen to His words that we might keep it. We receive Christ in Holy Communion that He who is the Word of God might dwell in us. We attend Church programmes to listen to His words that we might keep them. We bear the name Christian because we are like Him who is the Word of God. What do we call it when we bear the name Christian and yet the Word does not take flesh in us? It is nothing but hypocrisy.
Jesus Christ tells us today, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.” Failure to keep His words shows that we do not love Him. Keeping His words alive in us is so necessary that He promises us the Holy Spirit who will reveal the truth to us and remind us all His words. He puts it thus: “But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” Holy Spirit has the task of teaching us the truth about Jesus Christ, about ourselves, about the world, about our salvation, etc. He is to teach and lead us to the truth, that we might keep them. He is also to remind us all that Jesus has taught us, that we might keep them. We also defile the Holy Spirit when we fail to keep the words of Jesus Christ.
Today’s first reading shows us that the Holy Spirit continues to teach the truth and remind us the words of Jesus in the Church. The reading shows us how the Holy Spirit led, guided and taught the people of God by the Church. At the time when there was dispute over whether circumcision was needed for the salvation of souls, the Holy Spirit acted through the apostles and the elders of the Church to affirm the truth. It is said, “Some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’ And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.” This tells us that the people of God recognized that the Holy Spirit dwells in the Church and as such the Church becomes the source of truth and the words of God. This brings to mind the words of prophet Isaiah: “and many peoples shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (2:3). Paul also writes: “if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth” (1Tim. 3:15). When we listen to the Church, we listen to Jesus Christ, to the Father whose words He spoke and to the Holy Spirit who continually teaches us the truth and reminds us the words of the Son.
The first reading also affirms the action of the Holy Spirit through the hierarchy of the Church in matters of faith and moral. It is said, “They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren, with the following letter: ‘The brethren, both the apostles and the elders, to the brethren who ate of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting. ... For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.” Today’s second reading also affirms it: “And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” The Church is built on Apostolic faith and Tradition.
The message today is that keeping the words of Jesus Christ is a proof of His love in us. The Holy Spirit keeps the words of Jesus Christ alive in us; He continues to teach us the truth and remind us of what Christ has taught us. He performs these tasks through the Church, teaching the truth and reminding us the words of Jesus Christ. He makes us keep the word of God by pouring the love of God in our hearts. St. Paul says, “and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5).
Grant, almighty God, that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy, which we keep in honour of the risen Lord, and that what we relive in remembrance we may always hold to in what we do. Amen
Fr. Andrew Olowomuke
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