Christ's Presence Among Us - 5th Sunday of Easter Year C

No one likes to suffer. We complain about having a cold or allergies or the slightest inconvenience to us. Much of our consumer culture is spent trying to convince us to purchase products and services that will ease our suffering and make our lives more convenient. Yet, last week we saw that the disciples rejoiced for suffering for the sake of the kingdom of God. The theme of tribulations and our response to it forms the theme of this week's readings. Each reading was originally written for a community experiencing distress and tribulation.


The first reading shows us the ministry of Paul and Barnabas in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. In each place they encounter disciples undergoing persecution, and the message of Paul and Barnabas is perhaps shocking to us today: "It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God." For some reason Christians of every generation seem to think that the death and resurrection of Jesus means an easy life for the believer. Yet we cannot share in Easter glory until we first experience the sufferings of Good Friday. As a noted spiritual writer noted regarding the ministry of Paul and Barnabas, "The love of Christ which sustained them and their awareness that he himself was working in them and with them, did not dispense them from tribulations, just as the new converts to Christianity were not dispensed from them, since it is through those tribulations that we enter the kingdom of heaven." (Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, vol. 2, p. 197)


The message of Paul and Barnabas is no different from the message of Jesus in the Gospel text. The new commandment - love one another as I have loved you - calls us to love as Jesus loved, i.e. to live and to die for others. This love will be the mark of an authentic disciple of Jesus, a love that is completely selfless and self-giving for the sake of others. Every time we participate in the celebration of the Eucharist it is our hope and prayer that through this celebration we become more like Christ - to become what we eat - and imitate the selfless giving of Christ in the concrete actions of our lives. These actions of love manifest the presence of Christ in our lives to the world and to one another. The presence of Christ in the Eucharist has little meaning if it does not manifest to the world the presence of Christ in our lives through love.


The community of John continued to experience the tribulation of persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire during the reign of the emperor Diocletian. Within this context John composed the book of Revelation to be a source of comfort for his community of disciples. John describes through most of the book the tribulations that will beset the Church in every age until the end of time. Heaven is the reward for remaining faithful during this time of trial - the fidelity that Christ himself gave as an example for us in his death. In this reward there shall be no more tears, no more suffering, and no more death - a clear hope for the community suffering all these things in spades.


This love and fidelity transformed the world and brought untold numbers to the Christian community in the early Church. Can it be that our lack of tribulation is a sign that we have conformed ourselves to the world instead of to Christ? Do we lack the love we should have, the love Christ bids us to have? As we reflect upon these things in our own lives, may the prayer of St. Augustine inspire us to renew and rekindle our love: "O Christ, you have given us a new commandment, that we love one another as you have loved us. You call it new because you strip away the old man and clothe us with the new. In fact it is not just any love that renews man, but the love which you distinguish from the one that is purely human when you add: as I have loved you. This new commandment renews only the one who accepts it and obeys it...Lord, make this love renew us, make us new men, heirs of the New Testament, men who sing the new canticle. Make this love which has renewed all the just of ancient times, the patriarchs and prophets, as later the blessed Apostles - make it continue to renew the nations and gather in the whole human race, no matter how much spread throughout the world, make of all a single new people, the body of your bride." (St. Augustine, In Johannis, 65: 1)