Abide in My Love
Jesus’ invitation to abide in his love comes with a challenge and a promise. The promise is that Jesus will abide with us, that his joy will be in us and our joy will be complete and that the Father will give us whatever we ask in Jesus’ name. The promise would surely spur us on to love as Jesus calls us to do. However, the challenge can be quite daunting. Jesus calls us to love one another as he loves us and then reminds us that his love for us and for the Father led him to lay down his life for us.
Jesus’ invitation to love as he loves calls us to look and go beyond the norm, the expected, the usual. We have the example of Peter in the reading from Acts. The whole episode is a study in the work of Providence. Just before the encounter with Peter, Cornelius (a Gentile) has a dream in which he is told to send for Peter. As his messengers were on the way to Joppa, Peter also had a dream. In his dream, a large sheet was let down from heaven, containing all manner of creatures and Peter is told to kill and eat. Peter refuses to eat what is “unclean”, being a faithful Jew. God’s voices questions Peter’s refusal to eat what ‘God has made clean’. This dream brings about a change of heart for Peter and he then accepts the invitation from Cornelius. This is the beginning of Peter’s transformation from a strict Jew to a member of a community that is open to new possibilities. Again, prompted by the Spirit, Peter proclaims that God has no favourites and proceeds to baptize Cornelius and his household. Observing the Spirit descending on the newly baptized, Peter recognizes that Jesus’ call is for everyone.
As we celebrate this Sixth Sunday of Easter and hear the call of Jesus to abide in his love, as we open to the challenge and willing to respond? Do we trust the promise of Jesus to be with us and that our joy will be complete? Or will we be content to carry on as usual, with our particular reservations, biases and unwillingness to see beyond what is known and comfortable? Each of us has to ask the question: What is God calling me to today? Am I willing to step beyond the known and reach out to those who are perhaps forgotten, on the margins, unwelcome in our particular circles or might be deemed unworthy of God’s promises? If I truly abide in Jesus’ love, then I am challenged to do as he did – to reach out, to welcome, to embrace each person I encounter along the way and to love them in the same way Jesus loved each person he encountered. Do I trust Jesus’ promise enough to respond to his challenge?
By Richard Beaudette, OMI
