Saturday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 16, 2020

John 15:18-21

Jesus said to his disciples: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”

Our parish is set to reopen on May 31.  The bishop has given us instructions on what we must do in order to offer public Masses again, including limiting the number of congregants at Mass to half the capacity of the church and disinfecting the it between Masses.  We are now trying to figure out how to implement the required measures.  

Jesus says, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.”  St. Matthew’s Gospel, written for the persecuted Jewish Christians of Galilee, reminds us again and again that the world will hate us: “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake” (Matthew 5, 11); “You shall be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (Matthew 24, 9).  Here, at the Last Supper, in St. John’s Gospel, he tells them this again, this time expanding on the reason why: “Because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”  The world, that is, worldly people as well as our fallen human nature, “hates” the Christian because he lives his life scorning what it prizes.  He does not conform because the Lord Jesus has chosen us “out of the world”.  That is, he has instilled grace in us so that we value the virtuous life and look forward to the world to come.  The present world rejects Christ and service to him in its pursuit of that which gives selfish pleasure, and cannot bear Christians, the very sight of whom they feel as a stinging rebuke of their behavior.  In fact, the worldly are very quick to demand that people not “judge” them, making it plain for all to see that they know that what they are doing is wrong — they simply do not want to be reminded of it.  The just man, by contrast, is glad for correction: “The way of life, to him that observes correction: but he that forsakes reproofs, goes astray” (Proverbs 10, 17).

Consequently, Jesus explains, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”  The hatred by the world for those who do not conform themselves to it results in persecution.  Indeed, the normal relation of the world to the Christian and to the Church is persecution.  At various times and in various places there may exist an uneasy peace, but this is only for a short time.  We should not be surprised when the Church is opposed and ridiculed, or when living as a Christian is made more difficult by the passage of laws and the adoption of immoral norms by society.  We should expect persecution.  It is, in a way, a proof that the individual Christian and the Church on earth is on the right track.