Be Loved

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, May 14th, 2023:
The Sixth Sunday of Easter

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John
14.15-21

Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

“The one who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me; and the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Imagining how the Disciples felt, awaiting this Spirit of Truth, I am feeling many things. My teacher and friend has died, He has come back from the dead, and He is leaving again. It’s devastating, confusing, and unsettling. It unearths my fear of losing intimacy with Him.

He’s not really leaving, though, because He’s leaving the Advocate to be with me — He asked the Father for it to be so — and He says I am in Him, and He is in me. He is telling me that, if I do the good things He has taught me, I will experience His love, and He will continually be revealed to me in this way. This is how He will receive my love, and how I will receive His love. So then, He always is, yet I will encounter obstacles that will separate me from Him. And these obstacles are entirely dependent on me. He knows this, and I will have to learn it time and time again. 

I have a deep desire for this intimacy — He in Him, Him in me, and me in Him. And I have had glimpses of this immeasurable closeness, this known-ness, this being folded into, surrounded by, succumbed to. As brilliant and surreal as this experience is, I am not always free to receive it. Knowing the Truth and being in Truth are very different configurations, and my knowing often leads me astray. When I am caught in my mind, I can find myself distracted from being in my body, and to be loved requires the amalgamation of all my parts in a coordinated effort of loveliness. If I know Him but am not being Him, I can suffer from an inability to receive Him because the fruit He has offered has not flourished, but withered. 

I can also find myself operating out of my body rather than my mind, going through the motions of His commandments dutifully, and absently. What are my actions worth if I am not in His love? They may feed a mouth but cannot quench a soul. It is the Him-ness in me that offers the Life others need. And I cannot go on giving without regularly taking in His love so that I may have Life to offer. The fruit may sustain for a moment but falls short of eternity.  

What will my next encounter with the Holy Spirit be like? When will it happen? What will it be like to be fully integrated? How can I prepare my heart for this to happen?

These questions remind me that God is in control. If I want to be at peace with this, and fully in Him, and Him in me, I must make a habit of fulfilling His commandments. I must go to Him each morning and seek union with His heart. I must bring my longing for Him into my prayer and renew my vision of His hands as my hands, His heart as my heart. 

Lord, may our minds be as one, and may my whole life reflect You.



Lori MacDonald

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