6th Sunday of Easter (Year A)
Acts 8:5-8,14-17 | Psalm 65(66):1-7,16,20 | 1 Peter 3:15-18 | John 14:15-21
Reverence the Lord Christ in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have. (1 Peter 3:15)
That’s a tall order for most of us. When people ask us why we live in hope, when they press us to reveal our secret to happiness, what do we tell them?
Do we launch into a fact-laden spiel straight from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and instantly bore them to death?
Or do we speak from our hearts, and from our own experiences?
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
The secret to my happiness is bound up in four simple words from Jesus:
I shall not call you servants any more, because a servant does not know his master’s business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. (John 15:15)
I was staring at that passage a few months before I started this journey of daily scriptural reflection, and thinking:
Jesus actually said that. “I call you friends.”
And he’s not the creepy uncle from upstairs who stares at me in a disturbing manner.
In fact, he’s everything I look for in a friend: loyal, kind-hearted, but also unafraid to let wrong-doers know what’s what.
Why the heck am I avoiding Him? Why am I not spending quality time with Him, like friends do?
So I began reading from the daily missal that I’d bought years before, and only cracked open when my mom would call for advice on how to pronounce some Biblical name in a mass reading.
And then I started blogging about daily scripture, because I had a website with nothing on it. Somehow, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
It still does.
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
But my story of hope doesn’t end there…
The funny thing about spending time with your friends…is that you get introduced to their friends, and maybe establish a friendship with them too.
Guess who Jesus is friends with? That’s right: EVERYONE!
And so I started clearing my own table when I finish my lunch, and smiling at and thanking the cleaners if they’re around, and especially if they clear my tray before I have a chance to do the deed. It’s nice to see their mood lift for just a few seconds, before returning to their (literally) thankless task.
And so I started greeting bus drivers when I board, and waving and shouting my thanks when I alight. That usually makes them do a double-take, but they always smile back, and often return the wave too.
And if that lifts their mood, making them pay a little less attention to their personal grievances, and more attention to the road that they’re plying, I might just have made my fellow passengers’ journey a little more comfortable and safer.
No thanks needed. That’s what friends are for, no?
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
Now, Jesus is my LORD, so I’m not about to go “hey, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal”.
But he’s also my friend, so I want to spend quality time bonding with Him, like with all my other friends.
And unlike all my other friends, He’ll be around forever.
That’s actually good to know.
Amen.