5th Week of Easter, Monday, Apr 29
Acts 14:5-18 / John 14:21-26
Jesus gives parting advice: “Keep working on love."
Richard Bach wrote a story called Jonathan Livingston Seagull. One of the characters in it is an old teacher named Chiang, who has had a great influence on Jonathan. The day finally comes when old Chiang must leave his young student forever. Jonathan knows it's a special moment and wonders what parting advice his old teacher will give him. Chiang's farewell message contained just four words: “Keep working on love."
This is the same parting advice that Jesus gave to His own disciples: “Keep working on love."
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How faithfully are we carrying out Jesus' parting advice? “We have learned to fly in the air like birds and to swim in the sea like fish. But we have not learned the simple act of living together like brothers.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The Rector of a major seminary would periodically lament, half-jokingly and half-seriously: “I am tired of showing good example to the students. Give me a break!” Many of us can identify with his frustration. It is hard to keep doing good things and be “a model.” But, in truth, this is hard only when love hasn’t swept us off our feet. Anyone in love would know that he or she would go any length to do anything for the beloved. No work is hard for the one in love. Jesus is spot on when he says if anyone loves him, he or she will truly keep his word, and if one doesn’t, it would be hard for that person to keep the word. Love always affects a spring on our feet. It is love that makes our feet like the hind’s feet and helps us climb and dance upon the mountain heights (cf. Hab 3:19).
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It should be of no surprise to us that life has its cycle of ups and downs. One moment we can be happy and next moment we can be angry. One day, we can be effective and productive and the next day we can be like a zero. Connected with the cycle of ups and downs is the reversal of fortunes. In one place we find acceptance but, in another place, we find rejection.
That was the experience of Paul and Barnabas in the 1st reading. In their mission, they faced persecution and they had to scramble for safety to Lycaonia. There in the towns of Lystra and Derbe, they preached the same Good News and Paul even healed a crippled man.
They not only found acceptance from the people, but they were also even treated like gods, which of course they tried to resist. So Paul and Barnabas knew what it was to preach the Good News. There were ups and downs together with a reversal of fortunes.
But whichever way it was going and in whatever way it was turning out, they kept the Word of God and were faithful to it. The Word of God made its home in their hearts and they found refuge and consolation and strength in the Word of God.
So, as we go through our ups and downs in life and see our fortunes reversing for better or for worse, let us turn to the Word of God. May the Word of God give us consolation and strength and may the Word of God make its home in our hearts.
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Prayer: Lord God, loving Father, we look for your presence in the temple of nature and in churches built by our hands, and you are there with your people. But above all, you have made your temple right here in our hearts. God, give us eyes of faith and love to recognize that you live in us, with your Son and the Holy Spirit, if we keep the Word of Jesus Christ, your Son, and our Lord forever. Amen
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Saint Catherine of Siena, 1347-1380
Feast Day April 29
We celebrate Catherine of Siena as an international political figure, a feminist hero, and a doctor of the church. To get a more accurate view of Catherine, imagine a scruffy, not-so-respectable version of Mother Teresa. Catherine was not a nun, however, but a member of the Dominican Third Order. Thus she followed the life pattern of the Friars Preachers as a layperson.
In 1376, Catherine worked to repair a breach between Pope Gregory XI and a league of northern Italian cities led by Florence. Since 1305, the papacy had been a cause of contention between the French and the Italians. Turmoil in Rome and conflict with the emperor had forced the popes to retreat to Avignon in southern France. Catherine shared the popular Italian desire to restore the papacy to Rome. Pope Gregory XI was willing to make the move, but his powerful French advisers resisted.
Catherine conducted a campaign of letters to all sides and offered to mediate directly. She wrote Pope Gregory XI six times, exhorting him to return to Rome. The pope said that Catherine addressed him with an “intolerably dictatorial tone, a little sweetened with expressions of her perfect Christian deference.” Encouraged by the Florentines, she went to Avignon on a peacemaking mission.
Apparently, the pope had made a secret vow to move back to Rome, and this vow was revealed to Catherine. When she met the pope at Avignon, she didn’t hesitate to use that inspired bit of information to pressure him. “Keep the promise you have made,” she urged, to his great surprise. Not long after this encounter, Gregory XI returned the papacy to Rome. Catherine’s efforts to reconcile the pope and the Italian cities finally succeeded during the reign of Urban VI, Gregory’s successor.
