Sixth Sunday of Easter, 14th May, 2023

Gospel: John 14:15-21
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If you love me you will keep my commandments.
I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate
to be with you for ever, that Spirit of truth whom the world can never receive
since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him,
because he is with you, he is in you.
I will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you.
In a short time the world will no longer see me; but you will see me,
because I live and you will live.
On that day you will understand that I am in my Father
and you in me and I in you.
Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them will be one who loves me; and anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and show myself to him.’

The Gospel of the Lord.    Praise to you O Jesus Christ.

Fr Donal Neary, S.J
Gospel Reflections for the Year of Matthew
www.messenger.ie

No body now but yours...

St Teresa's prayer is popular in this adaptation-

Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do well.
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
You are his eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Jesus speaks in the gospel about being still alive, even after his death. Mostly we find Jesus alive in the love of others. The energy of love that is connected to the energy of God, for God is love. Other times we find God close to us in prayer; but where we can sense him alive mostly is in the ordinary and extraordinary loves of every day, in marriage, family, friendship and care for others.

Many of us do not realise that in this way we have been Christ-bearers. In listening to another, in care of all sorts, in putting ourselves out for the other, in working for justice and for peace the Spirit of God is alive and people are touched by God's love through the co-operation of ordinary men and women.