In the Gospel today, this Fifth Sunday of the Easter Season, we hear Jesus call the Disciples (us) His children. In pondering this piece of the Gospel, I see that this is an affirmation of the relationship we should have with God—the loving parent of us all! The key to childhood, and the parent-child relationship, is dependency. All our other relationships (our human ones) are (usually) about equality—or really should be, in my (humble) opinion. Our relationship with God, however, is not about us being equal.
Like children we are dependent on God for all things, especially in our spiritual growth. This is the key—to ask our parent—God—for the graces to be the best “I” we can be for the kingdom on earth. St. Paul reports in the Acts of the Apostles today about what God had done with them—not about what he did for God. This view, this understanding of our place and our dependency is the key to our spiritual childhood—but the idea is we then need to grow up in our faith!
Only God can make us His (kind of) “equal” or co-creator in His work—He does so through our spiritual childhood that (we hope) may begin to understand and treasure charity, love and forgiveness above all other feelings, motivations, attitudes and behavior. If we are “sin-full”—greedy, jealous, angry, spiteful, prideful—we are not able to be an adult Christian grown in faith and committed to living to glorify God—we will not have grown up spiritually and will be unable to do what we are commissioned to do as His Disciples.
Today Jesus hands on a seemingly simple, but an important commandment/teaching from God: “love one another.” This is how we know we are growing up to spiritual adulthood: in the face of a lot of “stuff” around us we will act, think, evince and witness this commandment. When we do this, we glorify God by manifesting and communicating God’s very love, forgiveness, mercy and goodness in our lives and in those around us.
In Revelation today we hear: “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.” Every tear will be wiped away, there will be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for all this old, not grown-up stuff, will be gone. We will treat each other as Christian spiritual adults—and all things will be made new in God’s love. The key to spiritual childhood is our dependency on God to recognize our failures, reconcile our sins, and practice our faith as intended—that is how They Will Know We Are (grown-up and true) Christians—by our love, forgiveness mercy and goodness.
Keep singing!
Elizabeth Dyc
Like children we are dependent on God for all things, especially in our spiritual growth. This is the key—to ask our parent—God—for the graces to be the best “I” we can be for the kingdom on earth. St. Paul reports in the Acts of the Apostles today about what God had done with them—not about what he did for God. This view, this understanding of our place and our dependency is the key to our spiritual childhood—but the idea is we then need to grow up in our faith!
Only God can make us His (kind of) “equal” or co-creator in His work—He does so through our spiritual childhood that (we hope) may begin to understand and treasure charity, love and forgiveness above all other feelings, motivations, attitudes and behavior. If we are “sin-full”—greedy, jealous, angry, spiteful, prideful—we are not able to be an adult Christian grown in faith and committed to living to glorify God—we will not have grown up spiritually and will be unable to do what we are commissioned to do as His Disciples.
Today Jesus hands on a seemingly simple, but an important commandment/teaching from God: “love one another.” This is how we know we are growing up to spiritual adulthood: in the face of a lot of “stuff” around us we will act, think, evince and witness this commandment. When we do this, we glorify God by manifesting and communicating God’s very love, forgiveness, mercy and goodness in our lives and in those around us.
In Revelation today we hear: “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.” Every tear will be wiped away, there will be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for all this old, not grown-up stuff, will be gone. We will treat each other as Christian spiritual adults—and all things will be made new in God’s love. The key to spiritual childhood is our dependency on God to recognize our failures, reconcile our sins, and practice our faith as intended—that is how They Will Know We Are (grown-up and true) Christians—by our love, forgiveness mercy and goodness.
Keep singing!
Elizabeth Dyc
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