The Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 5, 2024

John 15, 9–17

Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”

Matthew 4, 18–19: “And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea (for they were fishermen). And he said to them: ‘Come after me, and I will make you to be fishers of men.’ ”  Matthew9, 9: “And when Jesus passed on from thence, he saw a man sitting in the custom house, named Matthew; and he said to him: “Follow me.’ ”  John 1, 43: “On the following day, he would go forth into Galilee: and he found Philip, And Jesus said to him: ‘Follow me.’ ”  Never before had a teacher gone in search of students.  Normally, a young person who wanted to learn a skill or a trade would be apprenticed to someone recognized as a master in that skill or trade; or, for those seeking something more, philosophers and religious teachers could be found in the public square.  But the onus lay on the prospective student.  Here, Jesus reminds the Apostles of how he went out of his way to choose them to be his students, his “disciples”.  And not only his disciples, but his Apostles, for he separated them from the mere learners to train them to be teachers one day.  And by this he showed that he loved them.

He shows his love to the Apostles too by giving them the grace that enabled them to defy custom, habit, and family in order to follow him.  They knew this too, for they had seen the Lord call many who simply walked away, as did the rich young man: “Jesus said to him: ‘If you would be perfect, go sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.’  And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions” (Matthew 19, 21-22).  And from Jesus they had received the grace to persevere despite all the difficulties and troubles.  So many had refused this grace: “And he said: ‘Therefore did I say to you that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.’ After this, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him” (John 6, 66-67).

What is the chief truth Jesus taught his Apostles, and teaches us?  That “as the Father loves me, so I also love you” and that they should “remain in my love.”  What benefit do they derive from knowing and doing this?  “That my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.”  Surely no other student in history ever learned something so beneficial!  

The twenty-fifth article in our continuing series on the Holy Mass: The priest’s prayer before Holy Communion

We all should pray before receiving Holy Communion.  If we pray before meals, as we should, how much more before The Meal?  The Church gives us the words for several prayers during the Mass but allows the members of the congregation to pray in their own way to prepare to receive the Body of Christ.  On the other hand, the Church gives the priest the words he is to pray before his own reception because the priest not only receives the Body of Christ on his own behalf but because he is consummating the Sacrifice on the altar, which is his work alone.  The Church provides two options, the first of which is centuries older than the second:

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who, by the will of the Father and the work of the Holy Spirit, through your Death gave life to the world, free me by this, your most holy Body and Blood, from all my sins and from every evil; keep me always faithful to your commandments, and never let me be parted from you.”

-OR-

“May the receiving of your Body and Blood, Lord Jesus Christ, not bring me to judgment and condemnation, but through your loving mercy be for me protection in mind and body and a healing remedy.”

These prayers can also be used by individuals for their own good.  

By these prayers the priest freely admits his own unworthiness to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus.  In the first prayer he connects the Lord’s freely coming among us to die for our sins with his own desire to be cleansed from any stain of sin so as to gain the eternal life won by him.  The priest then prays for the grace to persevere in faithfulness so that in no way may he be separated from the Lord.  In this he acknowledges his utter dependence on the grace of God to do this.  In the second prayer, the priest prays that his reception of the Lord’s Body and Blood may not result in a sacrilege (“judgment and condemnation”) but that it might result in his good (“protection in mind and body and a healing remedy”).

Next: The Ecce Agnus Dei