Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter – May 18, 2025

Acts 14: 21-27. Rev. 21: 1 – 5a. John 13: 31 – 33a, 34-35

Resurrection is the moment that human life evolved into a deeper spiritual reality. It’s all possible now as Christ is the first among us to experience this new existence in God. What is this connection between Resurrection and eternal life and the kingdom of God – Jesus said the Kingdom is within you. We, when we live in love, when we surrender to love, we enter into Kingdom life, God’s presence with us and in us. It’s loving as Christ loved us. That total surrender to faith and trust in God- letting go of self out of love. We are constantly being called to the Paschal Mystery and to the proclamation of Christ by our lives of surrender to God in love.

Jesus himself was the first model of how he invites us to love one another. His passion and death, his total love brought about our redemption. Remember the stories of healing, and feeding, children embraced, and the parables that speak volumes like the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, to name two.

So we love even those who are our enemies. Those who may oppose our values and our whole view of life. How do we go forward? In every action, making choices for others first, God acting through us.

It means there’s a level of caring, of respect for others, that goes beyond differences. We are all children of God. It’s accepting others where they are, with all the warts and challenges each of us bring to the world, to our relationships. No one is perfect, but we are all called to love, which means forgiveness, mercy, caring and respect. The general norms of human interaction and obviously the goals of Christian life.

It’s our starting point of building the kingdom of God. St. Paul say it clearly in Acts today: 14: 22 It is necessary to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God. Paul is not talking about heaven, he is describing the state of affairs in the here and now. He is working through the human interactions encountered in the places he visited. As each community tried to change the status quo into a new reality with Christ. Yet we see in Paul’s letters the challenges many of those early Christian communities faced, he had to really call them to the deeper truth of Christ and Paul had to be tough with them. The hardship of sacrificial love, coming to the space with Jesus. The Christian life is not easy at times. God is always doing work in us. What is God doing in you, what is the invitation now for you?

The believers were the minority, they were outcasts in some respects, separated from the faith community that they knew and belonged to, because of Jesus everything changed for them. They were strong in the spirit. And lived in Christ. Their experience ultimately formed the church.
Sounds like the same thing we want to be about in today’s world. Strong in faith and action. And we get the clincher in Revelation 21: 3, it gives us the vision: Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race, he will dwell with them and they will be his people and he will be their God.

And we to heard the Word, Behold I make all things new. We have God with us and God’s Spirit in us. God wants to bring about the Kingdom in us. We see the way forward in the values of Jesus even in the world that seems so hostile to these values. We make the difference by our example. Because we live in the power of the spirit, we seek to act in the name of Jesus.
All lives are sacred, so we seek to do things to honor and respect one another that sanctifies our lives and our world. That brings the Kingdom into focus. Boy, how do we need that today!!!

Pope Francis taught us by his example. We know that many held on to his words and life. It seemed like the whole world showed up to his funeral. Because of his example. That fidelity to the neighbor not any rigidity. But an openness to the other. A way forward to unity, to compassion. There’s the new commandment. Love one another as I have loved you.

The blessing now is Pope Leo, he had that same history working for the poor in Peru. Even becoming a citizen there. And for his community of Augustinians priests and brothers.
His first words to the world were “Peace be with you”. He trusts in the Lord, and he is seeking to put it all into practice. With dignity, equality and fraternity that celebrates the truth of who we are.

The primary point of Jesus’ new commandment is the manner of loving, the how of loving. Jesus says, love as I have loved you, Everything flows from that.
Jesus heals without requiring to follow him, but to love others. He feeds others because they are hungry. What is the need and how to we respond. How do we bring life, that newness to others, whatever that may mean to that person, the newness God brings to us through Jesus. The New life Jesus initiates for all of humanity brings us to our own resurrection into eternal life. Life forever with the Trinity – the fulfillment of the Paschal mystery.