HOMILY • The 6th Sunday of Easter

PRI Reflections on Scripture | Monday of the 6th Week of Easter

Original Post Date: May 6, 2024 === Gospel John 15:26—16:4a Jesus said to his disciples: "When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. "I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.” Reflection We're coming to the end of Jesus ministry with his disciples. And what he's promising them is something really important. He's saying, I'm not really leaving you. My father and I are one, and we are there for you. And the form that we take is this mysterious thing called the advocate. The Holy Spirit. And it's the power of God continually to work with each individual, and open their eyes to the mystery that we are faced with. Understand fully the redemption that Jesus won for us. We need that teacher. Closing Prayer Father, as we ponder the mystery of who you are in our life, we know that we long to understand this mystery more and more. So help us to be open to the ways in which you will guide us. Let us surrender to the insights that you share with us as we continue to live the word of God. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

HOMILY • The 6th Sunday of Easter

Original Airdate: May 14, 2023 Acts 8:5-8, 14-17 | 1 Peter 3:15-18 | John 14:15-21 Grant, almighty God, that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy, which we keep in honor of the risen Lord and that what we relive in remembrance we may always hold to in what we do.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever, amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

PRI Reflections on Scripture | Saturday of the 5th Week of Easter

Gospel John 15:18-21 Jesus said to his disciples: "If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, 'No slave is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.” Reflection There's something hopeful in realizing that as we have continued to preach and teach this beautiful message of God flowing to us through Jesus and explained through the Holy Spirit that what we're really receiving is an understanding of who we really are. God is asking us to be nothing other than who he created us to be. And when we bring that truth to someone who is caught in the lies that they have created, there's always going to be hatred and a desire to destroy the one who speaks the truth. Closing Prayer Father, help us never to be discouraged. The world is changing. Is moving more and more into being what God intends it to be. Help us to see that and to take courage in simply being the truth. Being a person who is able to understand that they are vehicles of God's grace, changing the world we live in. Making it into the Kingdom of God. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

PRI Reflections on Scripture | Friday of the 5th Week of Easter

Gospel John 15:12-17 Jesus said to his disciples: "This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.” Reflection There is something about trusting a friend and being able to reveal to them things that we know and that we feel. Jesus used that as an example of His relationship with us. But you can't fully grasp it until you realize what Jesus is doing. For the first time in the history of the human race, He’s revealing the fullness of who God really is. What a thing to tell the world. Jesus, the man, the human side of Him was hearing all this for the first time in a sense, and he shared it with people because He knew how transformative it was and how different it was from the fullness of the Old Testament, which didn't get close enough to revealing the fullness of who God really is. We need to bask and live in this new knowledge with an open heart. Closing Prayer Father to know you is to fall in love with you, and to fall in love with you is to know what life is for and how we are to live. So we know that your love is never conditional on our performance, but rather, in a sense, the reward of our belief that you are the lover you say you are. You are the healer in all of us that we now possess. Let us feel the joy and the peace that that brings. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

PRI Reflections on Scripture | Thursday of the 5th Week of Easter

Gospel Mark 15:9-11 Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.” Reflection The commandments that Jesus is referring to is the heart of the law. To love God, to love your neighbor, and to love yourself. The beautiful thing about being human is that when we are loved, we learn how to love. We have to understand how much God loves each of us as we are, as he created us, and having that conviction of our value. We have that sense that there is something in us that we can offer to another, that our love has a quality that is needed and always appreciated. Closing Prayer Father, free us from all those voices in our past that have told us that if we're not doing something as we're supposed to, that we will be rejected. There is no rejection on the part of God to anyone that he has created. He's there to support, to tell us we're valuable, to tell us that we have a gift within us. His love that he longs for us to share with the world. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]