Reflection: 5th Sunday of Easter, Cycle A

Acts 6:1-7; 1 Pt. 2:4-9; Jn. 14:1-12

As we approach the Ascension of the Lord, the Mother Church presents to us the Lord’s own words on the reality of our future after this earthly life. “In my Father’s house there are many mansions… I go to prepare a place for you… Then I will come back to take you with me, so that where I am you also may be.” These steps are graphic. In Mt. 25:34 the Lord says: “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” When the divine passive is used, it means that the Creator or the Father does the ‘preparing’. In today’s Gospel passage we read Jesus saying: “I go to prepare a place for you.” Jesus personally prepares for us! ( How awesome!) “Then I will come back to take you with me.” When someone in the family is dying, what do we see? Doctors and nurses are busy resuscitating the patient! The dying person has not privacy to meet his Lord! We, the family members, do not think of recommending the soul to the Creator. We forget the words of Jesus! When a person is dying, Jesus is there to take him/her to himself! Are we conscious of his promise and presence? Many photographs of car accidents have shown the presence of Jesus and of angels. Where is our faith? We should rather be on our knees praying with and for the dying person, whether at home or in the hospital. We must give space for the dying person and for ourselves to meet the Lord who comes to take our loved one to himself. Or do we still have faith? “So that where I am you also may be.” That is Jesus’ purpose for coming, to take us to the mansions of heaven. Do we welcome him, do we allow him? It is time we put aside our fears, and allow our faith to govern our actions.

Unlike Thomas, now we know where Jesus is going and where he is going to take us. Through the centuries, Mother Church has taught us how we can make Jesus our Way, our Truth and our Life. Mary at the Annunciation said: “Be it done to me according to your word.”  Jesus at Gethsemane said, “Not my will but thine be done,” which he concluded on the Cross with, “It is consummated.”  In Jn. 4:34 Jesus says, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” As it was for Jesus, so is it for us; in following Jesus and doing as he did, we do the will of the Father, and Jesus becomes our Way, our Truth and our Life. In Jn. 14:15 Jesus tells us, “I you love me, you will keep my commandments.” As he obeyed the Father, so does he tell us to obey him; and the greatest command is: “love one another as I loved you” (Jn. 13:34). God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to suffer and to die to save us, while we were still in our sins. “I am in the Father and the Father is in me,” and as we received Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, we also receive the Father and the Holy Spirit, the bond of love between them. How awesome is our God! Let us love him in return. He waits for us.