Message of Abbot Paul - Sunday - 5th May 2024

Our Gospel passage for today, (Jn 15:9-17), is part of Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples at the Last Supper according to John, in which we find many of the themes and phrases that we have been meditating on over the past two weeks.

“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.”

Just in that short passage, the verb remain, or better still, abide, occurs three times, the word joy, twice. The verb to love occurs twice and the noun love, three times. Finally, to keep the commandments appears twice. They are key words in John and occur more times as we go through his Gospel. Jesus’ love for us enables us to abide in his love, to live in and through his love, which is permanent and unconditional, if demanding, for it requires obedience to the will of God as manifest in the commandments. But that abiding in God’s love enables us to keep the commandments not out of fear, but for love’s sake, and therein lies our joy.

“This is my commandment:

love one another, as I have loved you.

A man can have no greater love

than to lay down his life for his friends.

You are my friends,

if you do what I command you.”

We still find the words commandment and love, but a new word appears, friends. So great is Jesus’ love for us that he lays down his life for us, and now he calls us friends. Friendship implies obedience in the true sense of the word, to listen to the other, not superficially, but in the very depth of one’s heart, heart speaking unto heart, as St John Henry Newman wrote. A good meditation for today would be to consider the many ways in which we can lay down our lives for others and what true friendship really means.

 

​Jesus develops the theme of friendship and its implications, when he says to his disciples:​​“I shall not call you servants any more,

because a servant does not know

his master’s business;

I call you friends,

because I have made known to you

everything I have learnt from my Father.

You did not choose me:

no, I chose you;

and I commissioned you

to go out and to bear fruit,

fruit that will last;

and then the Father will give you

anything you ask him in my name.

What I command you

is to love one another.”

There are several implications for the relationship between Jesus and his disciples: they are no longer servants or simply followers of Jesus; they have been chosen by him and given a commission, not simply to bear fruit, but to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last. In other words they are given the mission to proclaim the Gospel and draw others into the fellowship of the Christian community, a community of friends; they are to pray and intercede for others, for the Father will listen to their prayers; above all, they are to love one another: that is the fundamental command of Jesus, love.

 

​Let us pray for the grace today and always to abide in Jesus, so that we might love others and he loves us, and return his friendship with our own, as we too give up our lives for our friends, Amen.