Sixth Sunday of Easter, Conversations with Consequences Podcast, May 13, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Vigil
May 13, 2023

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday. It’s a continuation of what Jesus said to the apostles on Holy Thursday night in the Upper Room. He told them he was communicating these things before they happened, so that when they happened, the apostles would believe. He was preparing the apostles not only for his betrayal, crucifixion and death that would occur within hours, but even more for the post-Resurrection reality of the Church, which is why the Church always ponders these passages throughout the second half of the Easter Season so that we might believe more firmly, in the light of the resurrection, everything Jesus says.
• This Sunday, the Risen Lord Jesus speaks to us specifically about four promises, four blessings, four different ways he wants to relate to us.
• The first promise is, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments and I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth.” In 1565, these words were put by Thomas Tallis into one of the most famous and beautiful motets of all time, which I am playing now in the background. It’s the promise that if we love Jesus by keeping his commandments, to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, and to love our neighbor as he loves us, then he and the Father will give us the Holy Spirit to be always with us. Earlier this week, on May 8, the Church in the United States celebrated the Memorial of Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, born in Bayonne, NJ at the beginning of last century and the first American to be beatified in the United States, which took place at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark in 2014. She wrote in one of her spiritual reflections, “God’s purpose in my life is this in general: To teach men that Our Lord’s promise ‘If any man love Me, he will keep My Word; and My Father will love him and We will come to him and make our abode with him’ is held out to every soul regardless of calling; and is the perfect realization of His prayer and ours: Thy kingdom come.” God’s desire is to come and dwell within us. This is what we pray for when we ask, “Thy Kingdom come!,” we’re asking to dwell with God in his kingdom, beginning now, within. That’s the Mission of the Holy Spirit who has been sent to us, for whose outpouring on Pentecost we are now beginning to pray. This is the first, incredible promise Jesus makes to us that comes from our seeking to live in his life, our seeking to do his will and remain in his word by keeping his commandments.
• One of the Holy Spirit’s chief works is to convince us we are beloved sons and daughters of God the Father. The Holy Spirit is poured into our hearts so that we might cry out, “Abba, Father!,” so that we might recognize the intimacy of a relationship with God as “dad.” That leads to Jesus’ second promise in this Sunday’s Gospel: “I will not leave you orphans.” In the midst of a culture in which there’s a true crisis of loneliness, in the midst of human lives in which sometimes we can feel abandoned, just like Jesus did on the Cross, in which the apostles felt like sheep without a shepherd after the crucifixion, Jesus promises that we will not be left orphans. He will not allow us to be abandoned by Father and mother. The Holy Spirit helps us to remember that God the Father is with us, even within, together with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But he also helps us to relate to the Mother God the Father chose for his Son and that Son, on Calvary the following afternoon chose for us, the mother whom the Holy Spirit overshadowed and who helped the early Church to become docile to his gifts, fruit and work. In this month of May, dedicated to our Lady, as we prepare for Mother’s Day this Sunday and pray for all our moms living or dead, and as we celebrate the 106^th anniversary of Mary’s appearances in Fatima, Portugal this Saturday, how important it is for us to recognize that Jesus will not leave us orphans, but will send the Holy Spirit to help us live ever more in communion with God the Father and with Mary our spiritual Mother.
• The third promise is, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” Jesus tells us that his resurrection will be our life — “I live and you will live,” he says — and that when he goes to be with the Father, to dwell in communion with the Father, he is bringing us with him, as members of his Mystical Body. This is a mind-blowing reality. Jesus will develop it more deeply on Holy Thursday in a passage we’ll hear next Sunday. But his mission is to bring us into the communion of persons who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to help us come alive through his resurrection and ascension, and to assist us to live in communion with God who entered our world to redeem us and make that communion possible.
• And the fourth promise is, “Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” We have been made by God, who is love, in his image and likeness, meaning for love. Earlier during the Last Supper, Jesus said, “Just as the Father loves me,” and we know the Father can’t love him any more, “so I love you.” Then he asks us to remain in his love, telling us that we will remain in his love when we love God and love others as he has loved us. So there is a condition he places on our receiving his love: we have to love. That’s why Jesus speaks to us in the Gospel this Sunday about keeping his commandments. He tells us this Sunday both, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” as well as “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one that loves me.” Jesus says that we cannot have that communion with him unless we do what He commands. There’s a clear reason for this: because Jesus is the Word-made-flesh. We cannot separate Him from the word he put into flesh. We can’t truly love him and at the same time choose not to love his will expressed in the commandments. We cannot love him and at the same time fail to be faithful to him, for example, by breaking the commandments, all of which hang, Jesus tells us elsewhere, on the two-fold command to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor. We cannot love God and then choose other gods over him, or use his name as a throwaway word, or prioritize non-essential work, cartoons, sports or political talk shows over him on Sunday. We cannot love him and at the same time disrespect those through whom he gave us life or hate or kill, steal from or lie to those he loves. We cannot love him and at the same time think that his love is not enough, by coveting what others have, or the ones others love. It’s pretty simple conceptually, but in practice so many of us try to separate Jesus from his Word, thinking that we love him as long as we have “positive feelings” about him, “respect” him, and have “affection” for him. But he tells us love is shown in deeds. Just like a husband’s love for his wife is shown not by how many times he whispers “I love you” in her ears, but by his faithful love for her in all his deeds, so our love for Jesus is shown by our loving fidelity in remaining faithful to him in all the areas specified by the commandments.
• As we prepare for Sunday, Jesus wants to get us ready so that our conversation with him, just like his conversation with the apostles on Holy Thursday, might truly be consequential and that we, through zealously desiring and striving to keep his commands, may experience all these blessings he promises. He wants us to experience the real love of God the Father and of the Blessed Mother, especially when we’re in difficulty, reminding us of their protection and prayers. He wants us to receive in full measure the gift of the Holy Spirit. He wants us to rise and live with him and to see him as he reveals himself to us. Let us ask for the grace to express our gratitude for him and to enter into a covenant of love in this world and forever. God bless you all!

The homily was based on the following Gospel: 

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