{"id":1599,"date":"2015-05-10T12:50:30","date_gmt":"2015-05-10T16:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1599"},"modified":"2015-05-10T12:50:30","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T16:50:30","slug":"6th-sunday-of-easter-year-b-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/6th-sunday-of-easter-year-b-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"6th Sunday of Easter, Year B – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

6th<\/sup> Sunday of Easter, Year B<\/a>
\nActs of the Apostles 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
\n1 John 4:7-10
\nJohn 15:9-17
\nMay 10, 2015<\/p>\n

We pick up where we left off last week, with Jesus speaking to us about remaining in His love.<\/p>\n

What does it take to remain in His love?\u00a0 We must keep His commandments.\u00a0 Jesus tells us that we are His friends if we keep His commandments.\u00a0 This might bring up memories of former friends who saw themselves as the center of attention and who always needed to get their way.\u00a0 Friends like that are not the best of friends.<\/p>\n

Jesus is not that type of friend.\u00a0 Yes, we must follow His commandments but not out of obligation or for Jesus\u2019 good.\u00a0 Jesus doesn\u2019t give us commandments to serve Him.\u00a0 The commandments are for our own good.\u00a0 When we open ourselves to following the commandments, good things happen and we realize that Jesus is motivated purely out of His love for us.<\/p>\n

Who does Jesus love?\u00a0 Is there anyone Jesus doesn\u2019t love?<\/p>\n

Peter speaks today of how \u201cGod shows no partiality.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 God doesn\u2019t care where we come from or what race we are.\u00a0 As proof, God sends the Holy Spirit down upon the Gentiles.<\/p>\n

What about sinners?\u00a0 After all, Jesus tells us we remain in His love if<\/em><\/strong> we keep His commandments.\u00a0 So, God doesn\u2019t love sinners, right?<\/p>\n

If that were the case, then God would not have sent His Son to die for us.\u00a0 Jesus dies because<\/em><\/strong> He loves even sinners.\u00a0 God can\u2019t help but love us.\u00a0 God doesn\u2019t just serve as an example of love.\u00a0 God is love<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So why then does Jesus say we must keep His commandments if we are to remain in His love?\u00a0 It\u2019s not that God stops loving us but when we sin, we break our relationship with God and we are no longer \u201caware\u201d of His love.\u00a0 We are created in God\u2019s image.\u00a0 That means we are created to love.\u00a0 It is in love that we find fulfillment.<\/p>\n

Jesus wants our joy<\/em><\/strong> to be complete.\u00a0 I want to emphasize the word \u201cjoy\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus does not say He wants us to be \u201chappy\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to describe what I want to say in human words here.<\/p>\n

I see \u201chappy\u201d as meaning we had a good day where nothing bad happened or maybe we got some good news or we are satisfied with things like our job, cars, family, i.e. earthly things.<\/p>\n

I see \u201cjoy\u201d transcending that and having its origin in God\u2019s love and the love we have for one another.\u00a0 Happiness is dependent on earthly things while joy transcends the earthly.\u00a0 This means that when things \u201cdon\u2019t go our way\u201d we won\u2019t be happy but even when things go bad we can know God\u2019s love and thus a joy, a peace, that is transcendent.<\/p>\n

For example, if you are married and your spouse becomes seriously ill, you aren\u2019t going to be happy they are ill but you can still be joyful to have them as your spouse.<\/p>\n

I can also think here of some people I know who lose their job just as a loved one becomes terminally ill.\u00a0 They are not happy about losing their job but they see the hand of God at work in the timing of it to be able to spend extra time as their loved one dies.<\/p>\n

What has happened in your life that you would describe as bad at the time but then led to changes for the better in your life?<\/p>\n

We can spend a lot of time trying to make others and\/or ourselves \u201chappy\u201d.\u00a0 What we really need to be looking for is what makes us feel fulfilled.<\/p>\n

I liked being an engineer but it wasn\u2019t fulfilling for me.\u00a0 Life is more than the jobs we do.\u00a0 Fulfillment is about what we are created for, to love.\u00a0 For many this comes in marriage and a family while having a job where we work to be the best person we can be.\u00a0 For me, I find fulfillment in being a priest.<\/p>\n

Do you feel fulfilled?\u00a0 If not, why not?\u00a0 Maybe you need a different job.\u00a0 Maybe you just need to shift priorities to put God first and your family above earthly things.\u00a0 Put God first and God is love<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6th Sunday of Easter, Year B Acts of the Apostles 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48 1 John 4:7-10 John 15:9-17 May 10, 2015 We pick up where we left off last week, with Jesus speaking to us about remaining in His love. What does it take to remain in His love?\u00a0 We must keep His commandments.\u00a0 Jesus …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘6th Sunday of Easter, Year B – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-pN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1600,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions\/1600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}