Fifth Week of Easter, Year C

The Acts of the Apostles can be read from various points of view, for example, one can follow Paul on his missionary journeys, stopping with him in the various cities he passes. Or, one could be more interested in the apostle himself: his preaching, his way of proclaiming the Gospel. From these and other readings, one can draw certain lessons that are applicable to the Church’s and various Christian communities’ present situation. The brief account of Paul and Barnabas’ return to Antioch of Syria at the end of their first journey is particularly interesting: it shows how the apostle organised local Churches and kept watch over them.

‘In each Church’ Paul and Barnabas appointed ‘presbyters’; this was the form of organisation used by Jewish communities of the ‘Diaspora.’ Since it had been tested, the two missionaries readily adopted it. It was they, not the community, who chose people to hold authority in the local Churches, men who had ‘put their faith’ in the Lord, i.e. who had persevered in faith. It was also they who established these men in their ministry. This institution was accompanied by prayers and fasts, according to the Church’s custom whenever an important decision needed to be made for the future of the faith or the Church’s mission. But the way in which Luke speaks of the institution of the presbyters evokes ‘ordination.’ It would hardly conform to the spirit of the New Testament to speak of a ‘consecration’ of those who were especially entrusted to the Lord in the exercise of the responsibility that would fall to them. But one should not hesitate to speak of it as an ‘ordination’ that gives presbyters an ‘order,’ a special place, in the community over which they must watch, like shepherds over their sheep. Each local Church was thus granted its own organisation.

Even so, the apostles did not abandon them to themselves but continued to care for them. So Paul and Barnabas returned to the communities. ‘They strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in faith,’ Especially when they were faced with trials. As Jesus had commanded Peter, Paul never worked only for the awakening of faith; he was also concerned with ‘strengthening his brothers.’ He did this by both sending his disciples and by writing to the Churches. Such ongoing solicitude for the communities he had founded was his destiny, the ministry he had to continue to exercise. Notice the double ministry: the apostles gave the Churches they had founded their own caretakers; at the same time, and without usurpation, the apostles kept watch over these foundations, visiting them, sending them letters, and even imposing their authority when necessary. In time, this double ministry became more clearly structured. The Bishop of Rome would preside in charity over all the Churches: very early on he was given universal authority, which nonetheless did not suppress the authority of the local bishops. Intermediate jurisdictions were established, nearly always in conjunction with the extension of evangelisation to the far-flung reaches of the world. Some, in the West, are present only in historical record. Others, in the East, are still in place. And recently, new forms of ministry over the local Churches have been established, i.e. ‘episcopal conferences.’

We cannot presume to know what the future holds, for under the guidance of the Spirit, the Church will never cease to adapt itself and create new forms to respond to circumstances of time, place, language, and culture, becoming more and more catholic and universal. ‘Let us give thanks for all that the Spirit has already begun to bring about in our Church. Our response to present-day challenges must be profound and radical. This urgent task. No-one can stand to one side and indulge in scepticism: the first communities were not born that way.’ If this task seems somewhat arduous, in today’s Gospel our Lord gives us the way.

Unlike most people, Jesus was not caught off guard by his death: it was constantly before his eyes, and he freely gave himself up to it when the ‘hour’ had come. He was in control of himself till the very moment when he handed over his spirit. This is why, before his death, he wanted to gather his disciples for one last supper when, in leisurely fashion, he could speak to them heart to heart. Today we read the beginning of this testament.

‘Now has the Son of Man been glorified, and in him God has been glorified. If God has been glorified in him, God will in turn glorify him in himself, and will glorify him very soon.’ The style of this initial declaration expresses the faith of the Church very well. It also is conducive with other sayings of Jesus reported in John’s Gospel, where the Lord’s passion is always bound up with his glory. Although deeply troubled by the prospect of his death, Jesus wanted freely to say: ‘Yet what should I say — Father, save me from this hour? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father glorify your name.’ This prayer was immediately granted: ‘Then a voice came from heaven: ‘I have glorified it and will glorify it again.’’ ( John 12:27-28). When Jesus speaks ‘now,’ during the Last Supper, the passion has begun, for Judas had left ‘to do quickly’ what he had decided. ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.’

Only faith can perceive this mystery. The cross remains a frightful scandal, or at least an obstacle for some, if Jesus is not recognised as the Son of God who was near him ‘in the beginning’ through whom ‘all things came to be,’ who once ‘made his dwelling among us,’ ‘and we saw his glory: the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.’ (John 1:1-14). Jesus’ glory was veiled during earthly life, but not totally obscured. Following John, we learn to see in the ‘signs’ that Jesus performed some manifestation of his glory. After all the others, his resurrection is the ‘sign’ that manifests the glory he had in the Father’s presence ‘before the foundation of the world,’ to which he has been exalted forevermore.

Our Eucharistic celebrations perpetuate, till he returns, what Jesus did in the course of the Last Supper he took with his disciples. Next, he says: ‘My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.’ There is nothing strange about this, given the circumstances. On the contrary, a formula like this is altogether customary for addressing one’s own for the last time. However, the attentive reader of John’s Gospel will remember that at the various times when Jesus mentioned his departure, he said: ‘Where I go you cannot come.’ To follow him into his Father’s house, his disciples must wait for the day when he will come to seek them out: then they will be wholly reunited with him (John 14:2-3). Jesus, though, will not leave them orphaned: the Spirit will bring them peace and the assurance that he is alive. What he says ‘now’ thus deals with the intermediate time, the time in which we live. Now Jesus gives to his disciples and so to us a new commandment; the way we should act during this intermediate time: ‘I give you a new commandment: love one another, just as I have loved you, you also must love one another.’ We must listen to this new commandment and try to understand it: ‘As I have loved you…..’

Jesus’ love for us is the incomparable standard for the love we must bear for others, even at the cost of one’s own life if necessary, everyone, without exception, Jesus puts it in eminently clear terms: ‘But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you …. And lend expecting nothing back. To love ‘as’ Jesus, who died for the salvation of all humanity, is therefore to love unconditionally, with no restrictions. For Jesus’ love for all people is rooted in the love that binds him to the Father and reveals the Father’s love for us. To love ‘as’ Jesus is to be ‘perfect’ ‘Just as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ And to express like Jesus, in our own way, God’s holiness. For ‘This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’ This is the ‘sign’ of the Christian in the world, the irrefutable, immediately verifiable, proof of Christian identity. For this love appears in a way of life, not only a series of actions, however admirable or even heroic they may be. To walk faithfully in this way is constantly to be a certain way, blossoming from day to day in the peace and joy that nothing can harm; it is to bear fruit for time and eternity. Happy the disciple of Christ whose charitable life, ‘as’ Jesus’ gladdens the heart of humanity! A tall order perhaps, but with the Lord’s help nothing is impossible.

‘A little while…..now…..soon’: these words must always be retained if we are to have proper understanding and experience of the mystery of Christ, the faith, the Church, and the liturgy. Jesus dwelt ‘a little while’ on this earth. Resurrected ‘now’ he is near God who has glorified him by raising him from the dead. He will come again ‘soon’ radiant with ‘the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.’ Through faith, we possess ‘now’ what we hope for, we know unseen realities that shall ‘soon’ be unveiled. This tension between ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ is the dynamic of Christian life. It is completely oriented towards the encounter with the one who has come, is coming now, and will come. The time between the two manifestations of the Lord is that of the Church and its mission, the witness of ‘religious truth’, whose expression and criterion is the love that unites the disciples. It is the ‘sign’ that Christians must present to all people of their newness of life, of the resurrected who ‘now’ acts in them through his Spirit. 

‘Love one another as I have loved you… by this will people know, that you are my disciples.’