20190523
FINDING
COMPLETE JOY IN CHRIST
23 MAY, 2019,
Thursday, 5th Week of Easter
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
White.
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First reading
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Acts 15:7-21 ©
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I rule that we do not make things more
difficult for the pagans who turn to God
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After the discussion had gone on a long
time, Peter stood up and addressed the apostles and the elders.
‘My
brothers,’ he said ‘you know perfectly well that in the early days God made his
choice among you: the pagans were to learn the Good News from me and so become
believers. In fact God, who can read everyone’s heart, showed his approval of
them by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as he had to us. God made no
distinction between them and us, since he purified their hearts by faith. It
would only provoke God’s anger now, surely, if you imposed on the disciples the
very burden that neither we nor our ancestors were strong enough to support?
Remember, we believe that we are saved in the same way as they are: through the
grace of the Lord Jesus.’
This
silenced the entire assembly, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul describing
the signs and wonders God had worked through them among the pagans.
When
they had finished it was James who spoke. ‘My brothers,’ he said ‘listen to me.
Simeon has described how God first arranged to enlist a people for his name out
of the pagans. This is entirely in harmony with the words of the prophets,
since the scriptures say:
After that I shall
return
and rebuild the fallen
House of David;
I shall rebuild it from
its ruins
and restore it.
Then the rest of
mankind,
all the pagans who are
consecrated to my name,
will look for the Lord,
says the Lord who made
this known so long ago.
‘I rule, then, that instead of making
things more difficult for pagans who turn to God, we send them a letter telling
them merely to abstain from anything polluted by idols, from fornication, from
the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For Moses has always had his
preachers in every town, and is read aloud in the synagogues every sabbath.’
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 95(96):1-3,10 ©
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Proclaim the wonders of
the Lord among all the peoples.
or
Alleluia!
O sing a new song to the Lord,
sing to the Lord all the
earth.
O sing to the Lord, bless his
name.
Proclaim the wonders of
the Lord among all the peoples.
or
Alleluia!
Proclaim his help day by day,
tell among the nations his
glory
and his wonders among all the
peoples.
Proclaim the wonders of
the Lord among all the peoples.
or
Alleluia!
Proclaim to the nations: ‘God is king.’
The world he made firm in its
place;
he will judge the peoples in
fairness.
Proclaim the wonders of
the Lord among all the peoples.
or
Alleluia!
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Gospel Acclamation
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Christ has risen, he who created all
things,
and has granted his mercy to men.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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Jn10:27
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Alleluia, alleluia!
The sheep that belong to me listen to my
voice,
says the Lord,
I know them and they follow me.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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John 15:9-11 ©
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Remain in my love
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Jesus said to his disciples:
‘As the Father has loved me,
so I have loved 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 own joy may be in you
and your joy be complete.’
FINDING COMPLETE
JOY IN CHRIST
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ ACTS 15:7-21; PS 96:1-3, 10; JOHN 15:9-11 ]
“I have told you this so
that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.” Life without joy has no meaning. We
all need joy in life. In fact, a life without joy is to fall into the
trap of the Evil One. There is a real danger that some of us may indulge
in the perverted joy of lamenting and whining, feeling forlorn and melancholic,
depressed and engage in self-pity. This is what the devil wants so
that we give up hope on ourselves, the world and ultimately on God and then
commit suicide. The devil’s goal is to destroy us and take away our
happiness because he envies us when we are happy. The truth in life is
that those who are unhappy want to see others unhappy as well. Like the
devil, they become very jealous of us when they see us happy and joyful.
St Francis always
reminded his disciples that joy belongs to the Lord, sadness belongs to the
devil. He forbade his
followers to display sadness in front of others unless one is with the
Lord. He said “My best defense against all the plots and tricks of the
enemy is still the spirit of joy. The devil is never so happy as when he has
succeeded in robbing one of God’s servants of the joy in his or her soul. The
devil always has some dust on hold that he blows into someone’s conscience
through a small basement window so as to make opaque what is pure. But in a
heart that is filled with joy, he tries in vain to introduce his deadly poison.
The demons can do nothing against a servant of Christ whom they find filled
with holy gladness; whereas a dejected, morose and depressed soul easily lets
itself be submerged in sorrow or captured by false pleasures.” (Vita
Secunda of St. Francis, §125 and 127)
Indeed, joy is essential
to the proclamation of the gospel. It
is not without reason that Pope Francis in his first encyclical wrote the “The
Gospel of Joy”, Evangelii Gaudium. He warns us that without joy in our
hearts, we cannot proclaim the gospel. “Consequently, an evangelizer must
never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral! Let us recover
and deepen our enthusiasm, that ‘delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing,
even when it is in tears that we must sow… And may the world of our time, which
is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to
receive the good news not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged,
impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with
fervour, who have first received the joy of Christ'”. (EG 10)
How, then, can we find
complete and true joy? It can only be found in Christ alone. At the outset of his encyclical,
Pope Francis wrote, “The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all
who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from
sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born
anew.” (EG 1) Joy is lost because we have fallen out of love with
Jesus. Joy is missing because we are not in Jesus’ embrace and security.
Again, Pope Francis wrote, “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very
moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an
openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly
each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her
since ‘no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord’. The Lord does not
disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we
come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms.”
(EG 3) This is what Jesus is inviting us all in the gospel. “As the
Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love.” Only
in the love of Jesus, His unconditional, forgiving and all-embracing,
providential love, can we find true joy and security in our lives.
There is no greater security in life than to rest in the love of Christ since
He is our security, our joy, our hope and our life.
But how can we remain in
His love? Jesus said, “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.” Does this mean that by simply keeping His
commandments we will remain in His love? We must try to understand what
Jesus meant when He said that to remain in His love we must keep His
commandments. If it is just a matter of obeying the commandments
and keeping the rules, we will eventually lose our joy. If marriage is
simply a question of indissolubility until death, then the relationship becomes
burdensome. This was what happened to the Jews during the time of Jesus
and the apostles. They thought that by simply observing the rules and the
laws, they would be saved. St Peter himself admitted in his counsel to
his brothers that even though the Jews were very strict with regard to the
observance of the laws, they themselves fell short of fulfilling them not just
in letter but also in spirit. Hence, he advised, “It would only provoke
God’s anger now, surely, if you imposed on the disciples the very burden that
neither we nor our ancestors were strong enough to support? Remember, we
believe that we are saved in the same way as they are: through the grace of the
Lord Jesus.”
This in no way denies
the importance of keeping the commandments but they are to be kept beyond just
the letter of the laws.
More importantly, one must keep the spirit of the laws. So the
commandments are meant to guide us, to help us to love God and our
fellowmen. Commandments cannot cover all the different scenarios and
circumstances when we are called to love God and others. At most, they
give general guidelines and principles to govern us and be applied accordingly
in concrete circumstances. So by keeping the commandments, we will stay
in the love of Jesus. If we break the commandments, infringe the intent
of these commandments, we would have failed in love. When we fail in
love, we lose the joy that Jesus gives to us.
I am always reminded in one of the verses
of this beautiful hymn from the Divine Office which we sing during Eastertide
which says, “Paschal triumph, paschal joy. Only sin can this destroy.”
Nothing can take away the joy of the resurrection except sin alone. So if
we live a virtuous life of integrity and compassion, free from sin, the joy of
the Risen Lord will always be with us. But sin causes sadness in our
hearts. It keeps us away from the Lord. Sin hardens our
hearts. The letter of Hebrew says, “Take care, brothers and sisters, that
none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living
God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called
“today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of
sin.” (Heb 3:12f) So sin
takes away our joy because we block the love of God from reaching out to us.
Indeed, the great joy of
a Christian is founded on the gratuitous love of God and His unconditional
forgiveness. It
is not by good works or by the observance of the laws that we are saved.
St Peter said, “My brothers … God, who can read everyone’s heart, showed his
approval of them by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as he had to us.
God made no distinction between them and us, since he purified their hearts by
faith.” It is faith in God’s love in Christ and His forgiveness
that we are saved. Indeed, St Peter was clear that salvation is not from
the laws since God Himself gave them the joy of the Holy Spirit even though
they were gentiles and not bound by the laws. In other words, one does
not have to be a Jew first before he becomes a Christian. Christianity
supersedes the old covenant.
Out of this love of God
in our hearts, we love others with deference and sensitivity. Joy comes from inclusiveness and
mutual respect. This was the advice of the apostles. Let the rules
be minimal and keep to only the essentials. They should accept the
Gentiles without having them observe the customs of the Jewish Christians as we
are not saved by the laws. On the other hand, Gentile converts must be
sensitive to the Jewish Christians because they had been brought up by their
tradition. So they should not unsettle them by conducting themselves in
such a way that offends the sensitivities of the Jewish Christians.
Hence, St James decreed, “I rule, then, that instead of making things more
difficult for pagans who turn to God, we send them a letter telling them merely
to abstain from anything polluted by idols, from fornication, from the meat of
strangled animals and from blood.” Other than the sin of sexual
immorality, it is significant that as time progressed, the other customary laws
became redundant.
In the final analysis,
Christian joy comes from the Lord Himself, His love and His mercy. Out of this experience, we joyfully
announce to the world the wonders of God. “Proclaim his help day by day, tell
among the nations his glory and his wonders among all the peoples.” By
announcing His love and mercy in praises, we must also announce them in words
and actions as well in the way we treat and respect others, especially the
weak, the broken-hearted, the sinners and those oppressed and in need. By
sharing our joy with them, we share in the complete joy that the Lord gives to
us.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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