-
May 24, 2020As the Easter Season draws toward its conclusion and high point at the Solemnity of Pentecost next Sunday, we can look back on the time we have been privileged to spend with the Farewell Discourse of the Gospel of John. Each year, we are invited, with the disciples, to recall with wonder the words Jesus spoke at the Last Supper, before he set out on the way of his passion, death and resurrection – the way to the Father. And these words, though placed before Jesus’ passion, are uniquely appropriate to the time after the resurrection, when his comings and goings provoke mixed emotions of joy and doubt, confusion and gratitude. Jesus’ words to us are both comforting and challenging; they acknowledge the reality of our confusion and sorrow that we must be separated from the physical human presence of Jesus, that we do not always experience his closeness. His words are an initiation into the intimate relationship he enjoys with his Father. They form a kind of apology for the Ascension and educate us in the rightness of his departure in the flesh, so that he may send us something better. Von Balthasar puts it wonderfully – he no longer stands at our side, so that from his Father’s side, he can lavishly pour out upon us his inner self, his Spirit. The time between Ascension and Pentecost gives a liturgical taste of the “little while” when we do not perceive him but await his coming anew in the Spirit. Like the disciples and Mary, we wait in an upper room, not with fear and a locked door, as was the case before his resurrection was made known, but with prayerful anticipation and intense desire for what has been promised us. We cry out daily: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful! Make us bold and creative witnesses to your invincible life!
In Chapter seventeen, Jesus goes even further, as he allows us to eavesdrop on his intimate conversation with the Father. For me, the high point is this conversation come with the words:
“Everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine.” (Jn 17:10)
This peek into the inner life of God is also a peek into the possibilities laid up for our own lives. Each of us, and all of us together are called into this mind-blowing intimacy with our Creator. Jesus tells us this, but he can also show it to us sometimes in events and relationships that are part of ordinary life. I would like to share with you something I wrote on this day three years ago, when I happened to be visiting my parents.
“A couple have lived together for many years, not without struggle – struggle with finances, with the stresses of raising children, with one another’s eccentricities and limitations and wounds. In the beginning, he worked long and hard, often away from home. She spent long days caring for the constant needs of the children when they were young, sometimes feeling guilty that she couldn’t give more love, more attention, more of everything. With all the energy and commitment having a family demanded, he could no longer see himself apart from his wife and children. They were one, even then, but this was only a beginning.
They have spent long years in each other’s company, learning from one another. He has learned from her how to express himself better and be more forthcoming in generosity. She has learned from him not to be so captive to emotional ups and downs, fears and compulsions. They have leaned on each other’s strengths and become sensitive to each other’s weaknesses. At length and almost imperceptibly, as the years pass the trees of adversity have thinned out and they find themselves in a clearing. Their lives have become one. This oneness does not mean that they are the same and do everything together. There is space in the clearing for each of them to be themselves: for one to do crossword puzzles while the other makes sandwiches; for one to clean up after the cat while the other takes a long walk. They bicker and tease. They take bouts of moodiness or stubbornness in their stride. Because they have shared much joy and much sorrow and forgiven one another for not being perfect, they have found peace. Today, this is where I see God in our midst.”
Some of us have experienced this image of God in our families, in our parents – not that they were, or are perfect, of course. But broken mirrors can still offer a reflection of the whole. Even if we did not find this in our family, there are opportunities to see the mystery of God’s heart laid open for us, if we know how to look, if we are able to receive them. Among ourselves, in our community life, can we also see traces of this divine mutuality, this dance of yielding and self-giving in trustful love, this willingness to be vulnerable? It comes and it goes, and sometimes it mostly goes! It can be terribly difficult, risky, and painful, perhaps especially to the extent that our natural family experience did not prepare us for this. But we know, because he has told us, that this is what God has prepared for us, this imperfect image on its way to completion. Maybe we could spend this week of waiting in hope, deliberately looking out for signs of the Spirit of Unity already at work among us. Perhaps I can be the one who makes the risky effort to be vulnerable and live out relationships of mutuality with those around me.
Image: Andrei Rublev Trinity
