Pentecost Sunday, Year B

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.