6th Sunday of Easter, Year B

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” our Lord declares to his disciples in this week's Gospel from John (14:15-21). Just as Christ loved us unto death, so also are we called to do the same. The life and martyrdom of St. Thomas More (1478-1535) is a poignant reflection of Christ's love and an example of profound fidelity to God; he was willing to oppose the spiritual supremacy of the king of England in favor of the true supremacy of the bishop of Rome. In one of More's meditations, he reveals that the love of Christ is indeed the truest, highest love, the only love worthy of imitation.

Let us deeply consider the love of our Savior Christ who so loved his own unto the end that for their sakes he willingly suffered that painful end, and therein declared the highest degree of love that can be.

For, as he himself says: “A greater love no one has than to give his life for his friends.” This is indeed the greatest love that ever anyone had. But yet had our Savior a greater, for he gave his for both friend and foe.

Who can in adversity be sure of many of his friends when our Savior himself was, at his capture, left alone and forsaken by his? When you go forth who will go with you? 

Now, since our Lord has so loved us, for our salvation, let us diligently call for his grace that in return for his great love we be not found ungrateful.

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B

Today's Gospel tells of Jesus calling his disciples. In 2014 Pope Francis spoke to a group of priests in the Chapel of Santa Marta who were concelebrating the Mass on their 60th anniversary of Ordination. He told them:

Calling of the Apostles (1481) Domenico Ghirlandaio

God in his love prepares the way, and he prepares our lives for each of us. He does not make us Christians through spontaneous generation. He prepares our path, he prepares our lives over time.... He is the Lord of the preparation, who has always loved us and never abandons us. Perhaps the act of faith to believe this is not easy, it is true. Because our rationalism tells us: why would the Lord, with all the people he has to deal with, think of me? And yet he has prepared the way for me, by our mothers, our grandmothers, our fathers, our grandfathers, and by our great grandparents, everyone: this is what the Lord does. And this is his love: concrete, eternal and also an art.