Fifth Sunday Of Easter Reflection: Only Love Knows The Way
Franciscan Reflections from The Hermitage – Fifth Sunday Of Easter – Only Love Knows The Way – (John 14:1-12)
Listen to this reflection: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/53703842
“God always begins with women… always they open the way. They don’t doubt: they know; they have seen Him; they have touched Him. They have also seen the empty sepulchre… Today also there is the option… either our bet will be for life, for the resurrection of the peoples, or it will be for the god money… to return to the sepulchre of hunger, of slavery, of wars, of the arms factories, of children without education . . . the sepulchre is there.” (Pope Francis APRIL 13, 2020)
Our beautiful Mother Church, a visible sign of love and unity in the great diversity of the nations, spotless Bride of Christ, holy yet also sinful. Yes, holy yet sinful. All of us… all have also participated in the great divide that threatens to engulf us as we gaze ever deeper into the abyss.
Forgive us Lord, dearest Beloved, for our participation in all those who are excluded by our clever loveless words and our manipulations. Forgive us, especially O Lord for our participation in the exclusion of the feminine nature of love… from our altars and from our pulpits. The expensive and clever diversions keep us insulated and mindless to the horrors that we have helped create.
Each one of us has been affected and in some way infected… each one of us has participated in union with the suffering of the People of this generation. No one has been exempted from the journey of isolation … and the need for repentance, for purification. Suffering and death are no longer indifferent distant images but have entered into our families and into the very heart of our beloved church.
Fragile promises and hope keep us clinging to our old ways of life with grim determination. Things were always better when… But it is above all fear and rivalry for resources that drives the human race to constrict, to erect barricades and to form unholy alliances that exclude… particularly that feminine nature of love.
The problem of sin and evil, pain and our suffering, cannot be confronted through pious platitudes… even less by a bloodthirsty and vengeful deity … or the scapegoating of an apparently all-powerful satanic being. Scripture informs us that bitterness, anger, resentment and transference comes from hardened hearts, leading always into a cycle of violence, retaliation and death.
How can we to move out of this deadly cycle? In today’s gospel Jesus tells us that, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” How can this become my reality in the midst of the chaos that surrounds me?
Much of the time we attend church for a few moments of relief and in order to escape from this world and enter a dream world of sweetness, beautiful chanting and singing, vague poetry, and universal charm… a place of refuge from the world that is cold, hard, greedy and overly competitive. But the truth is that we are called to be church in order to enter into the world as transformed people… a new creation.
God has sent the Incarnated Word into the world with the purpose and mission of transforming it and giving it back its true value and meaning from within, and that in Christ, God is sending us to do the same.
As Franciscans, we are called to build bridges of universal kinship with all brothers and sisters, regardless of race, gender, gender identity, socio-economic status, religion, country of origin, political party, age or culture.
We are called to create a diverse community network that fosters opportunities for building respectful and healthy relationships in our communities. In Pope Francis’ words: “Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travellers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth, which is our common home, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all.” – Fratelli Tutti #8
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