Gospel Reflection 5/17

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Jesus said to his disciples:⁣
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.⁣
And I will ask the Father,⁣
and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always,⁣
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept,⁣
because it neither sees nor knows him.⁣
But you know him, because he remains with you,⁣
and will be in you.⁣
I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.⁣
In a little while the world will no longer see me,⁣
but you will see me, because I live and you will live.⁣
On that day you will realize that I am in my Father⁣
and you are in me and I in you.⁣
Whoever has my commandments and observes them⁣
is the one who loves me.⁣
And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father,⁣
and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”⁣
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When my friends and I graduated high school, we decided to part from one another and exchange letters and small gifts describing the impact each had made on the others’ lives. These people whom I’d spent so many hours living alongside, joking with, sharing fears and anxieties, and planning for the future would soon be thrust away from my life. We knew that, in only a short few weeks, our lives would never be the same, and that a sense of emptiness would reside in places that once bore our friendship.⁣
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What did the disciples think when Jesus alluded to His passing on from this life? Those closest to Jesus had sacrificed everything they once clung dear to – family, friends, careers, stability, comfort – the list is inexhaustible. Where were they to put their trust in, now that their leader, guide, and friend would no longer be with them?⁣
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The letters that I saved from my friends have a particular ability to draw me back into a different place and time. When I take the time to read back through the letters, I can vicariously experience how we felt at that time of transition. Or, when I look at some of the gifts I received (my favorite being a picture that hangs on my dorm wall), I can almost sense being back in that moment, with those people.⁣
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These tokens of remembrance are good, but they are but small tastes of what it was actually like to be fully present with those people, sharing those times together. We are indeed romantic creatures; not in the sense of cheesy infatuation, but in practicing a fond memory for the people and circumstances that have shaped us. Perhaps this is why the instant camera is making a resurgence, we crave the ability to capture and hold a moment in something that transcends mere memory.⁣
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Christ, in His universal nature, leaves us with no such kind letter, nor souvenirs. Rather, Jesus promises the fullness of the Divine nature – the Holy Spirit – to be with His people always. The post-Jesus of Nazareth Age was certainly not a period of comfort for the people He charged with serving the Church. Periods of intense persecution, fierce debate surrounding doctrine, and uncertainty of direction were not obstacles that could have been overcome without the Advocate.⁣
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And this Divine participation is not merely the comfort that comes from knowing you are being cared for, but an intimate and active encounter with God, one in which we realize the universality of the Divine Union. As Christ explains that, “you are in me and I in you,” he hints at some sort of metaphysical indwelling of God within us. Says Athanasius in his Treatise – “OUR Lord, by becoming man, has found a way whereby to sanctify that nature, of which His own manhood is the pattern specimen. He inhabits us personally, and this inhabitation is effected by the channel of the Sacraments.”⁣
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By this token, we ourselves find the holy and eternal residing within our corporeal bodies, the work of the grace of the Sacraments. No longer merely the miracle of God walking among humankind, but now the miracle of God dwelling within God’s Creation. Pilgrims though we are, we remain deeply connected to He who sent us.⁣