7th Sunday of Easter, Year B

"...Not one of them was lost, none but him who was
destined to be lost"

In the Philippines, this Sunday is designated as Ascension
Sunday instead of the 7th Sunday of Easter. Most Catholic
countries follow the universal calendar of the Church,
which designates the Thursday of the 6th Week of Easter
as, Ascension Sunday. However, in the Philippines, for
pastoral reasons, the 7th Sunday of Easter is designated
as Ascension Sunday.

For the purpose of the universal calendar, we will reflect
on the gospel for the 7th Sunday of Easter, Year B.

In the 4th Sunday of Easter, we commemorated Good Shepherd
Sunday. We saw how much the Lord is a Good Sheperd for
all of us - laying down his very life that we may not
be lost in sin but rather gain life through him. Today's
gospel can be connected to that same theme of Christ our
Good Shepherd. We see in this Sunday's gospel how Jesus
prays much that all his followers may be one in him,
and may not be lost. And he tells us that we will not
be lost, as long as we follow Christ, who calls us to
himself and his kingdom - a kingdom where truth, justice,
love, freedom, and all the gospel values are to be
found. We know that we are of Christ, if we see this
world as one in which we live in temporarily, and that
our home is really in God. Let us be reminded of what
St. Augustine states when he realized the truth of
"how our hearts are restless until they rest in the
Lord".

So, the lesson we gain from reflecting on the gospel
this Sunday is, that Christ must be the truth for us to
know. And when we learn how Christ is the truth for us,
we will not be tempted by the illusions proferred to us
by the many things we see all around us. Sometimes,
these illusions may even be within ourselves too. By
Christ's giving of his life to us, he consecrated us
to the truth, that we may not be lost in error. Let us
therefore always thank the Father, for the gift of His
Son, who showed us the path we must take, and the truth
we must pursue.

Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B

"There is no greater love than this: to lay down
one's life for one's friends"

This passage from the gospel of John is one of the
popular verses that we know in Scripture. It depicts
the image of Jesus who sacrificed his life on the Cross
so that, we, his friends, may be saved from our sinfulness
and gain eternal life. Perhaps no man in the history
of the world has expressed love to its noblest and
its most sublime form as did our Lord Jesus Christ, when
he sacrificed his very life on the Cross out of love
and obedience to the Father. That is why the Christian life continues up to
this day, despite many things in our
modern world that is undermining its influence.
Christianity has survived the test of two millenium, not because of an ideal
or concept of love, but because of a Person, who showed through a very
concrete example,
what love really is: sacrificial, selfless and
life-giving. And this Person has truly made Christian
love a life-giving love by sending His Spirit on the
apostolic community on the day of Pentecost.

For those of us who have always known our Lord by his
example in the Gospel, let us be more attentive in these
times to base our ideal of love not on what the world
of our times teaches us, but more on what the Church
teaches us through its explanation of the Gospel. Let
us be strong and steadfast in our faith in the traditional
meaning of love that has been taught to all peoples
of all nations for many centuries past. If ever we
hear of something being taught that is not what we have
always known to be as the truth, let us be wary and
very cautious in accepting it, since the truth does not
change radically, or dramatically, when it comes to
the mystery of God's love and how he was incarnated in
Jesus. Rather than being swayed and swept by the
winds of contemporary beliefs, let us focus our eyes
more on the truth of the love of Jesus as we have
always known it to be in our Christian tradition.

3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B

"...he opened their minds to the understanding of the Scriptures."

Lectionary Readings for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B

When the disciples beheld the Risen Jesus again in their midst in
this Resurrection narrative, they panicked and were frightened.
They did not understand what was happening and thus created
this fear in them. From a plain human perspective, the disciples knew
that the dead do not rise from the grave. Thus, Jesus had to prove
to them that he was no ghost and that he was made of flesh and blood.
And to really prove it to them, he asked for something to eat. And
this, Jesus knew the disciples will surely understand; because
dead people do not eat!

The fear, the panic, the lack of understanding, on the part of the
disciples, was due to the fact that they forgot what was said about
Jesus in the Scriptures. So Jesus then had to open their minds to
understand, that the Messiah was to die, and rise from the dead
after three days, in fulfillment of the Scriptures. Without this
Scriptural basis for understanding the crucifixion and resurrection
event, the disciples will not really understand what is going on.
Only when their experience of seeing their Master crucified and
then raised from the dead, is seen from the context of the
fulfillment of Scripture, can they see that all this is really
of God, and not just an ordinary human event.

Like the disciples, there are times in our life that we shall
experience much pain, suffering, even illness, a loss of a
loved one or a relationship, or even a job or business. We
will surely not understand all these experiences and life
events, if we see them only from our own limited human perspective.
We may panic, be frightened, and be discouraged in all of
these. However, if we open our minds and our hearts to the
person of Jesus, he will help us understand the meaning of
all the negative things that assail and afflict us. We will
especially understand them better when we listen to him as
he speaks to us in the Word of the Scriptures and as he
makes himself present to us in the Eucharist.

So like the disciples in the resurrection narrative of today's
gospel, let us not be disturbed, let us not panic or be
frightened. Let us rather be open to Christ, who will
open our minds to the divine meaning of his resurrection,
so that we may view life from this Christian mystery,
and have a healthy and positive outlook, even despite
the hardships and difficulties we experience in our day
to day living. When we root our Christian living in the
mystery of the Resurrection, we will share in the life
giving spirit that Christ has won for us, by his victory
over sin and death.