Saturday

7th Week of Easter, Saturday

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Today’s readings bring us to the last words of the Acts of the Apostles and of the Gospel of John. The Easter season concludes tomorrow with Pentecost, and the readings prepare us for the next chapter of salvation history: our chapter. When Peter grows suspicious about the beloved disciple in today’s Gospel Our Lord gives him some sound advice: don’t worry about others, focus on following Christ. Peter’s concern is not the considerateness of a charitable outlook that seeks to identify a need someone has and to address it; rather, it’s one of those suspicious glances that can lead to rash judgments about others, unwarranted comparisons that can lead to discouragement or a superiority complex depending on how we (or they) measure up, and gossip.

Rumors had been flying about Jesus’ words to Peter about the beloved disciple and they’d caused such a stir that the author of the Gospel of John had to clarify what Jesus meant. We have to also be on guard against hanging around the rumor mill searching for some tidbit to satisfy our curiosity or to pride ourselves on being “in the know.” Some details about the lives of others are on a need to know basis and Our Lord will tell us if we need to know. We should concentrate on following him, not on how someone else is doing it (or not doing it).

Let’s ask Our Lord today to help close any rumor mills that cross our path, and to focus on following him. Let’s also ask for a prayerful attitude that praises God when we see him blessing others and entreats God’s help when we see others in spiritual difficulty.

Readings: Acts 28:16–20, 30–31; Psalm 11:4–5, 7; John 21:20–25.

5th Week of Easter, Saturday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that Christianity is not a popularity contest, and that comes down all the way from the top: after he’d spent three years preaching, travelling, healing, and working miracles, he was accused, abandoned, unjustly tried, and executed. When John speaks of “the world” in his writings he refers to all the forces that are opposed to Jesus and his saving work: persons, cultures, temptations, circumstances, and situations. Just as God is love and seeks to spread his love out of pure goodness, a sad response on the part of some of his creatures is, almost like a photo negative to the positive of his love, hate. They’re not on equal footing: God’s love will triumph, the only question is whether we let it triumph in us or stay out in the cold.

The shadow of the cross is always present in Christian life: the world wants to nail us up there as a lesson and as a statement as to what it thinks about God and his love. The Christian, following the example of Our Lord, must humbly and lovingly ask the Father to forgive these people, for they know not what they do. Love is ultimately the best response to the hate and scorn of the world, the true love as taught to us by God in His Son: it means truly always having the good of the other in mind, and a willingness to go even up onto the cross for them. Many times that love has to be tough love: giving testimony to an unpopular truth about marriage, family, morality, and so many issues touching the core of human existence. We cannot shy away from that if we truly love those involved.

Let’s examine the comfort level of our Christianity today: is there something in my way of thinking, speaking, and acting that rubs “the world” the wrong way? Does my concern about what others will think or say keep me from sharing the truth in love about the things that really matter? Ask Our Lord for the strength to love and endure whatever misguided response “the world” might have in store and to never be a “worldly” Christian.

Readings: Acts 16:1–10; Psalm 100:1b–3, 5; John 15:18–21.

4th Week of Easter, Saturday

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Our Lord promises the disciples in today’s Gospel that whatever they ask for in his name, he will do. We ask Our Lord for many things in prayer, and sometimes its seem that he does not answer. Some people have turned away from him because they asked for something they thought was very important in a crucial moment and it was not granted, including something noble, like a loved one’s healing, freedom from persecution, the ability to provide for your family.

In this same promise in today’s Gospel we can find an answer to why, at times, Our Lord doesn’t give us what we want in prayer in the way that we want it: “so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” When we ask Our Lord for something in prayer, is the asking itself, or having our prayer answered something that would really give glory to God? Would it help his Kingdom to come, his will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, as he teaches us in his prayer? Sometimes we can ask for selfish things, even short-sighted things, in the light of God’s saving plan, but Jesus himself in Gethsemane knew to only ask Our Heavenly Father to take away the chalice of his sufferings if it were possible, and united himself to his Father’s will. We always have to imitate his example.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pray for what we want and for what we need, but we should also join our wishes in prayer with the desire to glorify God and to do his will. Then we are working together with him to help his Kingdom come and his will to be done. Sometimes we’ll pray for big things and they won’t turn out as we’d like, but like the mystery of the Cross that Jesus himself endured, sometimes bearing our crosses with faith, hope, and love, give glory to God in a way that doesn’t seem so obvious, or in a way that will be revealed in the passing of time. Let’s continue to pray for what we need, and to also to seek to glorify God in everything that we do.

Readings: Acts 13:44–52; Psalm 98:1–4; John 14:7–14.