Fifth Sunday of Easter – Cycle C
Reflecting on John 13: 31-33a, 34-35
Did you see the recent National Geographic special about identical twins? These are people who will never be mistaken for cousins, or even siblings a year apart. No, identical twins are unmistakable. By their looks and mannerisms the world knows they belong to each other.
Those of us who belong to Christ should be just as easily identifiable. Love one another as I have loved you, says Jesus. By this the world will know you are my own.
By this, then, are those who belong to Christ known: by the thousands of charities and schools and hospitals and orphanages founded by people called by that Name (Mt. 25:35,36). By the forgiveness extended every day to co-workers, family members, and friends by those who remember Christ’s mandate to forgive seventy times seven (Mt. 18:22). By the day-to-day honesty in the workplace by those who recall that it is better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be rich, yet crooked in your ways (Proverbs 28:6).
It’s a scandal to find a person who was once taken to the baptismal font and baptized into the name of Jesus, and then lives the opposite of Jesus. The person who is mean, or violent, or unforgiving, or dishonest, or ungenerous had better not be pretending to be living for Christ, for Christ has told us exactly how to live. In fact, said Gandhi, All the world would be Christian if you Christians were more like your Christ.
I want to live Christ. It’s for that mission that we were baptized. It’s that simple. It’s that impossible. Come, oh Holy Spirit, and show us how to live.
Is there someone you admire for the way they “live Christ”?
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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).