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Homily: 5th
Sunday of Easter – Cycle A
If you’ve gotten to know me at all one
of the things that you’ll come to know about me is that I tend to be rather
nostalgic. In other words, I have a lot
of romanticized feelings about things from the past that always give my
remembrances of them kind of a soft, warm glow.
Many of these things are things from my childhood. For example, the movie “The Karate Kid”. I watched it not too long ago for the first
time in probably 15 or more years. And
even though I could sit through the movie and criticize it for its
hyper-romanticized portrayal of teenage life, I still felt really good about it
after having watched it. Part of this,
of course, is that the film is a pop icon from my childhood and I want to feel
good about the things that meant something to me when I was a kid. Another part, however, is the very real and
human situation that it portrayed.
In the film, Daniel, a teenager from
New Jersey moves with his divorced mother to California to “start over”. And he finds himself alone, seemingly without
any guidance to help him overcome the difficulties of making this
transition. When he runs into trouble
with a “gang” of karate students (who use their skill for violence against
him), he finds rescue in the form of an elderly Japanese man, Mr. Miyagi, who
not only trains him in Karate, but also becomes his mentor and guide through
this difficult moment in his life. It is
this latter part of this plot that I believe gives this film its enduring
appeal for me.
I think that all of us long for
someone who will choose to care for us and guide us as we encounter the
challenges of life so as to live well and pursue excellence—that is,
happiness—in our lives. Hopefully, most
of us had parents who did this for us.
If not, then perhaps we had grandparents or other family members, or
perhaps a neighbor or teacher in school that did this for us. If not, then we probably, even today, feel
that lack in our lives (even if we’ve gone forward to overcome most of life’s
challenges, anyway).
This is an enduring fact of human
nature, and so it should be no surprise to find that Jesus’ disciples found the
same thing from him. In our Gospel
reading today, we are reading from Jesus’ last discourse with his disciples
before his crucifixion and death. Here
he is giving his disciples encouragement to go forward and to maintain faith
even through the horrific events that were about to unfold for him. He instructs them that, even though he is
going away for a time, he will never be far away from them. “You have faith in God, have faith [that is, trust] also in me” he tells them; and
“whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and will do greater ones
than these, because I am going to the Father.”
Having guided and mentored them through his years of ministry, Jesus is
now seeking to empower them to go forward after him to do what he, as one
person here on earth, could not do: that is, spread this Gospel of salvation
throughout the whole world.
At the time, the disciples had difficulty
understanding what Jesus was telling them.
Witness Thomas asking, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how
can we know the way?” and Philip: “Master, show us the Father, and that will be
enough for us.” Nonetheless, after
receiving the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the disciples came to understand his
words deeply. Thus, we hear Saint Peter
in the second reading exhorting us to be one with Jesus, “a living stone…
chosen and precious in the sight of God… that has become the cornerstone”, by becoming
living stones ourselves, offering spiritual sacrifices to God so as to be built
up into a spiritual house, that is, the Church, on the cornerstone that is
Christ. The disciples came to know the
way (in fact, that’s exactly what they called those who followed them:
“followers of The Way”) as the Spirit
helped them to realize that, in Jesus, they had seen the Father.
In order to get to this point,
however, they first had to develop an intimate relationship with Jesus. Just as last week we heard Jesus say, “I am
the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved”, so this week we hear him
say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.” Again, we are reminded that we do not find
salvation on our own, but that we need Jesus in order to know the Father, which
is salvation. And since Jesus is the
way, then we cannot know the way unless we know Jesus. We, of course, have already begun to know him
through our initiation into his Body, the Church. Nevertheless, Jesus desires a much deeper
relationship with us than just an acquaintance.
He wants to mentor us—like Miyagi mentored Daniel—so that we can not
only overcome the obstacles of this world, but also achieve excellence, that
is, our happiness, in this world, in preparation for the happiness that awaits
us in the next.
And so we come to him here to worship
him in the Liturgy (i.e. communally) to acknowledge our common bond with him
and with each other; and this is the primary way that we commune with Jesus (and
through him the Father and the Spirit).
But we also seek him in other ways, too.
We spend time in prayer: perhaps in Eucharistic Adoration here in the
church or perhaps at home or in another place where we can find quiet within
ourselves to speak to him from our hearts.
We read the Gospels—DAILY! How
else will we know Jesus, the Way, unless we grow in knowledge of the way he
lived and taught when he walked among us as one of us? And of course we strive to follow his example
in our lives by loving our neighbor, forgiving those who hurt us, and seeking
always to serve those in need among us.
Each of these things are ways in which we grow to know and love Jesus
and so conform our lives to his and deepen our intimacy with him.
My brothers and sisters, this intimacy
with Jesus isn’t something hard to obtain: because it is something that Jesus
already wants for us. It is something,
however, that we have to want, too.
There’s nothing to be afraid of, however. Because whatever sacrifices we have to make
in order to choose this gift is worth it when compared to the inestimable worth
of the ultimate victory of happiness that Jesus has already won for us in his
death and resurrection. Let us, then,
let Jesus be close to us to guide us and show us the way (which is
himself). For when we do, we, too, will
know the glory of his victory: the victory that we participate in sacramentally
here at this altar.
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