Sixth Sunday of Easter (15:9-17) “Love is a Free Gift”

Sixth Sunday of Easter (15:9-17) “Love is a Free Gift”

         We have a conversation that goes on in our life that happens at almost every moment.  Who is it with? Maybe a story would help us to understand.

        A man was lying on a table waiting for emergency surgery.  The doctor came in and he said, “Don’t worry David we will administer the anesthetic.  After that we will make a few cuts on the abdomen.  We will take out the tumor.  We will then suture the wound.  And it will all be over.  Simple.”  The patient said to the doctor in disbelief.  “Doctor my name is not David. My name is Ernie.”  The doctor replied, “Oh don’t worry, I was just talking to myself.”

        How often have we been involved in a similar situation. We walk into a room and a family member is doing some mundane tasks like washing the dishes. And they blurt something out.  We look at them strangely because what they say has nothing to do with what we wanted to ask them.  When they notice our shock they say, “Oh, its all right, I was just talking to myself.”

        As human beings we have an ongoing conversation happening all day long. Who is it with?  We talk to our inner self. Someone once said in the beginning we were both the storyteller and the story listener.  In the end we will be both the storyteller and the person who listens to the story. And right now, we are both the storyteller and the story listener.  Most of the story we tell ourselves isn’t something we control.  But it is something that just happens.

        Often people will come to the Reconciliation, and they will be disturbed by negative thoughts about other people that pass through their minds. I will try to point out that they didn’t choose to have those thoughts, but they just happen.  We must choose to speak for it can be sinful.

        A spiritual question for us might be what is my inner dialogue like?  For many of us, that voice within is exceedingly negative on some days, if not most days.  We find it hard to believe in the innate goodness of humanity, for example. We are bombarded in the media with stories of people trying to swindle others, stories of people who are violent towards others, people who are liars, people who commit every kind of sin imaginable.  We hear so much bad about other people it is hard to believe that anyone has virtue.

        We can slowly come to believe that we are also corrupt.  We can constantly have negative thoughts about ourselves.  If we have people around us in our life who are overly critical this can feed a sense of self-loathing. Our inner voice becomes a constant critic.  The negative voices can become the truth that we believe. 

A second spiritual question we can ask is can this inner dialogue be changed?  The answer is yes.  And that is what Jesus tells his disciples in the Gospel. Our inner dialogue can be reversed if we can realize that God’s love is real.  God’s love rules the universe.

We might begin to change our inner dialogue by going back into our life to retrieve the forgotten moments of the past when we experienced love.  Now this love could have been from another person, a community of people, a pet.  We can retell the story of this love to ourselves and others which can shift the narrative within us.  We can begin to realize that the love we experienced in others is the love of God. The love we encountered in certain situations was a gift from God.  We can hopefully understand that we are lovable.  If we realized that we are lovable we can then extend love to other people.  The people we meet, the events we engage in become opportunities to experience more love.

Certain people that we meet give us positive energy.  We feel better about ourselves.  We feel better about the world when we are around them. We can call these people to mind. Remembering them can give us great hope in our daily life. The Jesus we believe in was such a person.  He didn’t come into the world to condemn it. He came into the world to redeem it.  Jesus wants his message to uplift us.  He wants us to experience the never-ending cycle of God’s love.

A king was riding down the road on a rainy day in his carriage pulled by six beautiful white horses.  A poor man was walking along the side of the road in the downpour.  The king called out, “Get in.”  The skeptical man said, “What do I have to do to earn this ride?”  The king said, “All you have to do is accept my offer.”  The key to living in the Kingdom of Jesus is to accept the story of God’s love.

 Reflection Questions:

Do I have a negative inner voice to contend with?  What is it telling me?

Do I have a positive inner voice?  What does it tell me?

 Dear Parishioners,

        The last few weeks we have had a series of celebrations in our parish.  We had the closing of the centennial celebration of our church building.   We had Confirmation.  We are now celebrating First Communions.  These liturgies have been beautiful.  I wonder if the people who come realize that this does not happen by accident.  There is a lot of planning and logistics to all these events.

        I would like to thank all those who have been involved in these activities.  I will not call people out by name.  But I will just thank the categories of people. I would like to thank our parish staff.  All of them are very generous with their time and are willing to step up when an extra pair of hands is needed to accomplish a task. They do everything from create the worship aids to fill in if we need an usher.  I would like to thank our musicians.  It is said that music provides 80 per cent of the inspiration for the liturgy. I would like to thank all our liturgical ministers from our deacons to our ushers. I would like to thank all volunteers  They are usually willing to help us out when we call. Our archives volunteers and our social committee also should be commended.

        I am more convinced that people are looking for God in their life.  Many people who are on the margins of the church have found their way back through the sacrifices of our parishioners.  The large number of people receiving the sacraments of initiation this Easter attest to that.

        May our Lady pray for us as we move toward Pentecost.

        Fr. Mark

 P.S. Bishop Tylka has asked that people celebrate a Novena as Pentecost approaches.  You can find that Novena in our bulletin.  He will be announcing the decisions concerning the Growing Disciples parish planning at Pentecost.

Let’s pray for all concerned.