Jesus Gives His Spirit to Those Who Love Him and Keep His Commandment

05-14-2023Weekly ReflectionFr. Anthony Okolo, C.S.Sp, V.F.

The first reading of today’s liturgy, taken from the Acts of Apostles, tells us how Philip took the gospel message to Samaria and proclaimed the Christ to them and the people welcomed the message. In the second reading, Peter encourages us never to give up our faith due to the persecution and challenges we may encounter since Jesus first suffered for us and left us an example to follow. In the Gospel Jesus said to his disciples; “If you love me, you will keep my commandment.”

One significant event that happened before Philip took the gospel to Samaria was the execution of Stephen which was approved by Saul (Paul) and the persecution of Christians. In Acts 8:1-4, it says “And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul laid waste the Church and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.” This shows that persecution of Christians has been there from the beginning of the early Church, but the Church survived because God’s Spirit was with the Church all the time and most importantly that those who have accepted the message never allowed persecution to be an obstacle to proclaiming the power in the word of God and spreading the gospel message.

Today, the Church faces many attacks from every angle in family life, marriage institution, the priesthood and her teaching on human life. There is a deliberate attempt to dethrone God and the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Church from our society. There is concerted effort to assign the human person the role of God and make the Church teaching less important today. As God’s divine institution His Spirit will always guide the church because he has made a promise that “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” (Mt 16:18) But most importantly, her survival depends on how we believers are willing to remain firm to defend the faith, amidst these persecutions and attacks. We are invited like Philip to proclaim our belief strongly against all these attacks.

This is a similar message St. Peter gives in the second reading, where he encourages us “that it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.” During the Easter season, all our second readings come from the letter of St. Peter in which he exalts the Christians to keep up the faith that has been received from Christ. The major justification for our faith in Christ is that Jesus died and rose from the dead and that is why we are confident that our belief is credible and our faith certain. This explains our hope in Christ and St. Peter wants us to be ready to give that as our reason for our faith. It also means that because we are certain of our conviction, we should be ready to suffer for doing good than give in to doing evil.

Jesus says in the gospel, “If you love me you will keep my commandment.” Jesus implies in this statement that there is only one test of love and that is obedience. It was by his obedience that Jesus showed his love of God, and it is by our obedience that we must show our love for Jesus. To Jesus real love is not an easy thing but it is shown only in true obedience. This is also why in 1 Sam 15:22 when Saul gives reason that he did not carry out the instructions given to him by the prophet because he kept some of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord, Samuel replied, “Does the Lord, delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.” The true test of our love for Jesus is our ability to keep to what he teaches.

Happy Sunday to you all.

Fr. Tony Okolo C.S.Sp., V.F.

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