Ps 27:1,4, 7-8
Jn 17:1-11
Thursday was the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord marking forty days since Jesus’ resurrection. One week from today we will celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. With that the Easter Season comes to an end.
The day after Pentecost the Church will celebrate the recently promulgated Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church after which ordinary time will be visibly symbolized by green vestments rather than white. Ordinary time will continue until the new liturgical year begins on December 1, the first Sunday of Advent. Because this is a leap year, Christmas 2024 will be on a Wednesday.
During the fifty days after Easter many of the readings come from Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of John. Acts was written by the same Luke who wrote the Gospel. The book gives us a window into the early life of the Church. We see the interpersonal and social dynamics that brought together--and sometimes split apart—a community that recognized Jesus as the Messiah, the Promised One, the Christ.
The formation and growth of the early Church wasn’t always smooth. The sinful side of human nature raised its head more than once in those early years. It continues to do so today. But despite the challenges the community grew rapidly as it spread the Gospel throughout the world. There was something unique about this group of believers, something that had never been seen before. As we heard in the reading from Acts two weeks ago “It was at Antioch that they were first called Christians.” The giving of that name was crucial.
Once an individual has a name, he can establish a way of being
and a way of proceeding. He can establish an identity. Similarly, once a group has a name it can begin to assume an identity. Once they are named groups and individuals become rooted in history. The name Christian took root very early and has continued for two millennia despite historical and current attempts to erase it.
While Acts gives us history John's Gospel gives us Christology, an understanding of Jesus. That Christology is different from what we find in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, gospels that are more heavily biographical.
The Gospel just proclaimed was comprised of verses 1 to 11 of the John’s 17th chapter. Chapter seventeen of John’s gospel is unique. It has no parables, stories, or discourse. There is no instruction to or dialogue with the apostles. The entire chapter is a long prayer from Jesus to the Father. It is worth reading slowly at home.
"Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ."
"Now this is eternal life . . . "
Eternal life is not some distant far-away place. Eternal life has nothing to do with Dante's Divine Comedy, a work that can be described as exquisite poetry but terrible theology. When Jesus described eternal life in this prayer, a prayer that he made shorty before His passion, he repeated what he had said earlier.
"Who believes in the Son has eternal life." (3:36)
"Who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has eternal life." (5:24)
In his commentary on the Fourth Gospel Jesuit Father Stanley Marrow wrote: "To believe in and to know the one whom God has sent does not lead to or result in eternal life. It is eternal life." That is a powerful statement. To believe in the one whom the Father sent . . . is eternal life.
Eternal life does not begin after death. Death continues the eternal life that began when we came to believe in and to know the one sent by God, Jesus, Son of the Father, Son of Mary, Jesus the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Redeemer.
The psalmist understood this when he wrote:
"One
thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek:
to dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
That I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord
and contemplate his temple."
"To dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life"
Not after my life has ended but all the days of my life as it is in this moment and in every moment more that I am given to live.
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Photos are from last weekend in Vermont. Stopped at two of the lakes . Spring was very delayed at 2600 feet elevation in VT. Just two weeks earlier they had had 36 inches of snow. Tends to slow things down.
Lake Madeline which is part of a hydroelectric plant. 
Processing allowed for the dark background on a brilliantly sunny day. 
Lake Bardo. The dock was red but it is practically stripped down to raw wood.
Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
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