Life itself is our best school. God is our teacher. Your present assignment is dealing with the challenges of life and trusting Jesus is accompanying.you.

 

Seventh Sunday of Easter  C   2022

 

The scriptures invite us to reflect the sadness we sometimes experience in having to say goodbye.  I invite you to reflect on the saddest goodbyes you have experienced.  How have you dealt with the grieving you experienced?

For me as a priest, some of my saddest goodbyes have involved in my change of assignments as a priest.  I can tell you 17 years ago when I came as the pastor of St Joseph’s, this has been a great blessing for my life. But it meant saying to the parishioners of St. Louis Church in Pittsford where I had been the pastor for 12 years.  I had grown to know and love this wonderful parish community, and in leaving at the time, it seemed like a forced divorce.

Even more so, is the sadness of saying goodbye to someone you love as the one love goes home to God.  I have to say goodbye to my mom and dad and my older brother and sister.  In this grieving, we are invited to trust in the peace that only God can give.

Today between the Feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost, we are marking Jesus’ leave taking from the disciples.  There is sadness for the disciples of Jesus on the Feast of the Ascension.  What the first disciples had to learn is a lesson for all of us -- many, many times we have to let go and say good-bye and trust that with each letting go, God promises that he will not leave us orphans.  We have to change many times in our discipleship journey.  We choose some of the good-byes of life; other times our good-byes are not of our own choosing.  With each transition, we are called to trust in God’s continuous presence in our life.

With each goodbye we experience, we are called to trust more fully in
God’s continuous presence in our life.  God never says goodbye but always us to trust more fully in his unending love for us.

The Gospel is taken from the end of Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper.  We are privileged to eavesdrop on Jesus’ intimate prayer with his heavenly Father.  In the Upper Room on the Eve of his Passion, the Lord prayed for his disciples gathered around him.  At the same time, Jesus looked ahead to community of disciples of all centuries.  In his prayer for all disciples of all time, he saw us too, and prayed for us.  He prayed that we be consecrated in truth.

 

 

In today’s Gospel, we are listening to the prayer of Jesus to his heavenly Father.  This takes place at the Last Supper with Jesus being conscious of His impending death on the cross.  Jesus does not see his death as ending, but rather his going home to his heavenly Father and a new way of being with us who are in the world.

Overhearing Jesus at prayer is our way of understanding the identity of Jesus and our participation in the divine plan.  The mission of Jesus to be become our mission.  What is this mission – to release divine love into the world. This is such an awesome mission for us as a parish community.

 May the prayer of Jesus be our prayer as well.  The prayer of Jesus is that we all may be one.  Jesus prayed for us to experience a unity based on our love for one another.  We needn’t be reminded for its need.  We often witness breakdowns of communication in families, enmity among members of the same faith community, dissension in civil society.  Jesus’ unity

 is to overcome all such divisions, especially those within the fold.  Jesus wants a unity like that between himself and the Father – a unity that preserves individuality, but which is close and intimate.  That union of the Father and the Son is our model.  It is a unity in which people will love and serve each other because they love and serve him; it is heart speaking to heart.  Its key is love.

Like Jesus, we find our glory in doing not what we will but what God wills.  What would it take for all of us to be committed to the petition we make in the Our Father: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

I invite you to hold on to this truth:  Life itself is the best school.  God is our teacher.  The problems we are facing right now are our best assignment from God.  In your present challenge, whatever it is, you may have to let go; you may have to take a risk; but please God this challenge may invite you to place even more trust in the plan of God for your life.  We are facing the challenge of senseless gun violence in our schools and in the streets of our cities; we are facing the diocesan bankruptcy caused by clergy sexual abuse; we are facing the devastation of the war in Ukraine.

 

As I say, life itself is our best school.  God is our teacher.  In the problems we are facing just now, what are we called to let go up and take the risk of faith and to trust even more deeply in the plan of God for our lives.

 

In the first Scripture reading today, Stephen was beautifully releasing divine love into the world by offering forgiveness to those who were stoning him to death.  Forgiveness is an essential element for achieving the unity that Jesus prayed for.

 

At the end of the day, may we claim the prayer of Jesus to be our own prayer.  Jesus prayed: “I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”  We are missioned to make the Lord’s name known in our parish and in our community. We make the Lord’s name known best when we release divine love into our world.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.

 

Have a Blessed Day.