Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 22, 2022

Jesus brings peace; trust Him and preserve His legacy

John 14:23–29

Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.

“I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.”

Music Meditations

• Be Not Afraid—John Michael Talbot
• Make me a Channel of your Peace--Susan Boyle
• A Gaelic Blessing (Deep Peace) John Rutter--performed a cappella by Julie Gaulke
• Hold me in Life—OCP Session Choir

Opening Prayer

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

—St. Francis of Assisi

Companions for the Journey

It is hard to leave a place where you have been for a period of your life, especially when you have formed close ties. Someone said to me recently, “I hate goodbyes. I find them very difficult.” She said it in a way that suggested this was unique to her and not what almost everyone feels. Who doesn’t “hate goodbyes?” Unless a person is glad to get out of a destructive relationship, or a very difficult situation, I don’t know anyone who finds farewells easy. Most of us look forward to them with sadness and dread. Even people I have known who are moving to a promising future---marriage, a better job, a new home---still feel pain about packing up and leaving. They know they are leaving a known world behind for an uncertain future. Anyone who has invested themselves in friends and place knows the poignancy of saying “farewell.” When the time comes for parting we try to soften the pain of the moment. “I’ll visit when I can.” “I’ll call you often.” “We’ll spend vacation time together.” “You’ll have to visit the first chance you get.” Though we do intend to do just what we say, we often have a fear that time and distance will make it hard to maintain the close ties with family and friends we have known. We will do our best to adapt to new circumstances and relationships and in doing that we may have to let go of at least some of what once was. It’s dreadful! One positive note, though: those we have loved in our past make it possible for us to leave and give us the courage to set down roots again.

In today’s gospel Jesus and his disciples are at table. It is the Last Supper and we are in the midst of the Last Discourse (chapters 13-17). From what Jesus has been telling them the disciples can’t miss the solemnity, indeed the heaviness, of the moment. He is going away and they will no longer have him with them in the ways they have become accustomed . He says he is going “to prepare a place for you” (14:3). Just before today’s passage Jesus reassures them, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you.” When we say our farewells we try to assure the ones we are leaving that we will stay in touch. And we do our best to do just that. We don’t want to lose those we love. Jesus is expressing the same kind of sentiment; but he will keep his promise to “stay in touch” in ways the disciples cannot imagine at this point. “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” Jesus doesn’t want us to have to rely just on his disciples’ recollections of him---who he was for them and what he taught them. He knows that being the mere humans they and we are, these memories will fade and weaken over time, especially when life tests our faith and hard times threaten to break our ties with him.

Jesus is saying a very unique goodbye. He is leaving his beloved band of followers, but promises to be with them in the future in a new way. He has to go, he tells them but, “...I will come back to you.” Jesus isn’t just saying, “Cheer up, things won’t be so bad.” Actually things are going to get quite bad for him and them. But he is assuring them that the coming of the Holy Spirit will keep their relationship vibrant because the Spirit will be the bond that holds them together in love with him and his Father.

When will Jesus return? Isn’t that the question long-suffering Christians have asked through the ages? Who knows how and when he will. But in his farewell to his disciples he assures them that he will return and he so he does, because God sends them the gift of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit, Advocate and Comforter brings Christ’s presence to us, helps us understand who he is, what he is doing among us and what he expects of us. Jesus promises that God will send the Spirit and what Jesus was to them, the Spirit will be to the Church. Jesus taught his disciples much; the Spirit will continue teaching the Church. Jesus showed his disciples how to love; the Spirit will make that love possible among them. Jesus’ words are in danger of being forgotten; the Spirit will “remind” the disciples of what Jesus taught and continue to teach them in succeeding generations.

What is extraordinary about Jesus’ farewell is his gift of peace to his disciples. The disciples are not having an ordinary meal together; nor is Jesus bidding them, “Good night. Peace, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Instead he offers them peace in the light of the chaos about to enter their lives with his capture and death. He says he doesn’t give them the peace the world offers. That’s good because when things fall apart the world can give us nothing to sustain our spirits and calm our fears. Jesus’ peace take a very specific form: he will return to be with them. His Holy Spirit will strengthen them for what they are about to face and what we, their descendants, will face in the ages to come.

We know the kind of peace we need these days and it is a peace only Jesus’ Spirit can confer. We need wise leaders who can bring God’s peace despite the failures at peacemaking we are encountering in the world. We need the Spirit to bring healing to our troubled and wounded Church. We need a peace-rendering Spirit to draw together our parishes that are divided by arguments large and small. We need a Spirit that will renew our conviction that our Savior is the Prince of Peace, so that we can bring his peace into our families, schools and workplaces. We also need the Spirit’s vision to appreciate the peacemaker and non-violent folks in our midst whose voices and actions are often ridiculed as being naive or ignored because their ways seem “impractical in our modern world.”

No, we don’t have Jesus’ physical presence with us the way the first disciples did who sat around the table, witnessed his washing their feet and listened to his reassuring promises. His farewell to them was a true farewell. He would no longer be with them as he had been. But they and we would have to believe that he is present in a different way with us in the Holy Spirit, God’s gift to us, just as Jesus promised. If we can trust in the Spirit’s presence with us now, then we will have peace in whatever turmoil we or the church face. Easier said than done! This peace is not something we can manufacture for ourselves. It is a gift, or inheritance from Jesus who doesn’t want to “lose touch” with us. Can we be open to that Spirit now and receive the gift that keeps our ties with Christ strong? That’s something we pray for at this Eucharist and in these days leading up to Pentecost.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• This discourse from the Last Supper, is Jesus’ long goodbye to his faithful friends of three years.
  How hard has it been for me to say goodbye to either persons or to a time in my life from which I had to move on?
  What promises did I make to those I was leaving behind?
  Have I kept in touch with them or forgotten them? What does that say about me?
• How does clinging to the past make it hard for us to let go, to embrace the new in our lives?
  How does nostalgic clinging to the past or over-anxiety about the future keep us from living in the present?
• Do I think Jesus ever had moments of anxiety, of worry, of fear, of loneliness?
  What do I think brought Him peace?
  What can bring me peace?
• What does “peace” mean to me?
  Is peace just the absence of war?
  What do I think is the connection between peace and justice?
• Is peace something we passively receive as a gift from God?
• How is the word “peace” related to my right relationship with God?
  Just what IS a right relationship with God?
• Do I see keeping Jesus’ word as a challenge or as a joy?
• From Walter Burghardt, S.J.:
  Peace is your communion with God. Evaluate this definition in terms of your own personal life:
  What wars have you ended in your backyard or your bedroom?
• Do others think of me as an agent of peace?
  What landmines of enmity and hate have I defused in my dorm, home, or office?
• Jesus said “Do not let your hearts be afraid”. What am I fearful about?
  Have I ever experienced the presence of Jesus in the midst of fear?
  Have I tried?
• Even the church of the disciples was plagued by divisions and rifts. Can calm and conflict be two different ways of the Spirit speaking to the Church?
  What disturbs the peace of my church right now?
  How am I helping to be a peaceful presence in the life of the Church?
• Is anyone freer to laugh because you have swallowed your pride?
• Who was hungry for food or affection that you have personally fed?
• Who thirsts for justice and feels more human because you are there?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

In order to experience the peace of Christ, to feel His real presence, we need to open our hearts to others. Pick one concrete action you can perform this week to really SHARE the peace of Christ with another. Pray for the insight to see where your Christian heart is needed and go the extra distance to change a situation or a person you encounter. Especially pray for Ukraine and the suffering that they are enduring. If you can think of some small way to help, do so.

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:

Adapted from “Sacred Space” 2022, a service of the Irish Jesuits:

Spend a few moments and let these words of Jesus speak to the deepest part of your heart, your life:
“Do not let your heart be troubled.” What worries me right now? What makes me sad right now? Is there anything I can do to mitigate the situation? I pray for guidance, for acceptance, for trust that Jesus is with me now and forever. I just sit with that notion, thanking Jesus for his ongoing presence in my life.

“Peace I leave you.” What do I mean by peace? What particular kind of peace am I praying for at this moment? Whose peace am I praying for right now? Can I believe that Jesus brings peace because Jesus IS peace?

I breathe quietly, in silence, without words, just resting in the presence of an all-loving God who desires my happiness.

A Meditation in the Dominican style/Asking Questions:

In Murder in the Cathedral, written by T.S. Eliot, Thomas Becket in his Christmas sermon said: “Does it seem strange to you that the angels should have announced Peace, when ceaselessly the world has been stricken with War and the Fear of War? Does it seem to you that the angelic voices were mistaken, and that the promise was a disappointment and a cheat?”

In the history I recall, where has the promise clashed with reality? In the news I consume daily, where has the promise clashed with reality? Why is that? Where do you spy peace on earth? Is peace really possible? Is peace another word that allows us to live at ease with the great divide between the hope and the reality, without looking at our role or our county’s role in the anger and hate that fuels so many conflagrations, international, national, and personal? How easy is it to blame “the other” for lack of peace? Where does forgiveness fit in? I spend some time praying for insight, courage and generosity of spirit which would help me be a better missionary of peace.

Poetic Reflections:

Most of the poems we run across, unfortunately, are describing or lamenting all the ways in which peace has been absent in human history. Here are a few:

“Tragic Error”

The earth is the Lord’s, we gabbed, and the fullness thereof– while we looted and pillaged, claiming indemnity: the fullness thereof given over to us, to our use– while we preened ourselves, sure of our power, willful or ignorant, through the centuries. Miswritten, misread, that charge: subdue was the false, the misplaced word in the story. Surely we were to have been earth’s mind, mirror, reflective source. Surely our task was to have been to love the earth, to dress and keep it like Eden’s garden. That would have been our dominion: to be those cells of earth’s body that could perceive and imagine, could bring the planet into the haven it is to be known, (as the eye blesses the hand, perceiving it form and the work it can do).”

—Denise Levertov, from The Evening Train

“Land of the Death Squads”

The vultures thrive, clustered in lofty blue above refuse-dumps where humans too search for food, dreading what else may be found. Noble their wingspread, hideous their descent to those who know what they may feast on: sons, daughters, and meanwhile, the quetzal, bird of life, gleaming green, glittering red, is driven always further, higher, into remote ever-dwindling forests.

—Denise Levertov, from a Door in the Hive

“We Are Saviors”

We have saved the world from political systems or economic systems or social systems of which we do not approve. We call it “our national honor”.

We have saved the world From oppression by people we do not like by giving our young people guns and allowing them to commit unspeakable atrocities on ordinary, everyday people in the name of liberation. We call it “collateral damage”.

We have saved the world From evil regimes in country after country, from Flanders fields to Vietnam, from Ancient Palestine to Iraq, and left each place worse than when we found it. We call it “the price of freedom”.

We have saved the world from sin and error from age to age, from the Spain of the Inquisition to the ovens of Auschwitz, and purified the world by taking people out of it. We call it “doing God’s work”.

At the end, we have saved nobody not this current generation not the children of the future not even ourselves, who have become what we have hated in others. We never learn.

Poetic Reflection:

Poet, environmentalist, farmer (and a former Stanford Stegner Fellow), Wendell Berry seeks nature as an antidote to his anxiety about his future and that of his family:

“The Peace of Wild Things”

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the woodrake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

—Wendell Berry from Collected Poems

Closing Prayer

From “Sacred Space”:

This is how you work with me, Lord. The Holy Spirit does not whisper new tidings in my ear, but rather reminds me of you, of your life and your words, so that gradually I put on Christ. We only learn what we already know. Help us to know your peace.