Friday of the 4th Week of Easter
May 1, 2015 8:30am
Today’s gospel is one of those
very comforting passages.
Jesus talks about a heavenly
home.
He says that he goes to prepare a
place for us and that he will return to take us with him.
This is a wonderful image – a
wonderful sense of what life after death, or better, what resurrected life will
be like.
The passage just oozes of hope,
comfort, warmth, and assurance.
It is a favorite selection for
funeral Masses.
One of our Catholic spiritual
writers adds that Jesus intends this heavenly home to begin now.
We are to have our first
experiences of it right now.
For example, when we reverently
and consciously give ourselves to the prayers of the Mass and receive Jesus in
the Eucharist;
when we sit at the bedside of a
parent who is dying;
when we comfort an upset child;
when we are patient with a
teenager;
when we quietly, maybe silently
try to understand the experience of both police officers and racial minorities
in our cities;
when we think of how we can build
bridges between persons or groups that are polarized;
when we feel compassion and do
what we can for those who grieving or sick or in any kind of need.
Theses are instances when we can
experience a taste of our heavenly home and enable others to feel that too.
We just have to calmly,
receptively open ourselves to the Lord and then live out of this experience
with one another.
