Acts 15,1-2.22-29; Ps 66; Rev 21,10-14.22-23; John 14,23-29

Commentary

The Three Special Gifts for Those Who Love Jesus

Today’s Gospel is taken from the so-called Farewell Discourse of Jesus during the Last Supper. It is the continuation of the words that the Teacher of Nazareth wanted to leave to his disciples as his spiritual testament before the Passion. We must therefore return to the mystical climate of that evening, listen meditatively to each of his words, to understand the full significance of today’s teaching, with which Jesus reveals to his followers the three special gifts reserved for those who love him.

1. “If anyone loves me […] we will make our home with him.” The gift of divine habitation

First of all, Jesus reveals to his followers the process of divine dwelling in the one who loves him. He explains, in effect, that if someone loves him and consequently observes his word, then the Father will love this person and the Father and Jesus will come to dwell in him. This is the dynamic of loving exchange between God and the “practicing” believer, that is, the one who remains in the love of Jesus and in his teaching.

It should be noted that Jesus offers this revelation not in a generic context, but as the answer to the fundamental question asked by the apostle Jude Thaddeus (not Iscariot) almost on behalf of all his disciples: “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” From Jesus’ explanation, we can understand the reason why the Lord does not reveal himself to the world in general. He, with his Father, reveals himself only to those who love him, according to the dynamic already expressed in the Old Testament: God makes himself known to those who love him. He communicates to them the divine mysteries, his gifts, and even his very self. Thus, St. Paul will affirm that “what no one has ever seen and what no one has ever heard, what no one has imagined, God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).

The gift of the dwelling of God, Father and Son, and therefore also their Spirit, in the person is intrinsically and intimately connected with the love that this person practices by observing the teaching of Jesus. If one does not remain in that concrete love, he does not have the dwelling and presence of God in him, because in fact he rejects this gift. God, with and in Jesus, loves everyone, but does not force anyone and does not enter anyone’s house with violence, but knocks and waits patiently at the door of everyone’s soul, according to what the Risen Lord declares with an implicit gentle invitation: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me” (Rev 3:20). Therefore, we do not ask why others in the world still close themselves to God and Jesus; rather, let us ask how we can open the door of our soul even more with the intensification of our love for Jesus and the observance of His words to always have the gift of God’s dwelling in us. Let us listen once again to welcome Jesus’ moving invitation during that Supper: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love!” (Jn 15:9). This is precisely the mission of love in which Jesus invites all his followers to participate in order to “evangelize” the world, starting with ourselves!

2. The supreme gift of the Spirit

From the revelation of the gift of divine dwelling in the faithful, Jesus goes on to reveal the gift of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father in his name: “He will teach you everything and remind you of everything I have said to you.” In this way, the Lord directs us toward the supreme gift of the Spirit that will descend upon the faithful at the end of these fifty Easter days that we are living. It will therefore be the Spirit who will help the disciples to remember all of Jesus’ teaching and to enter ever more deeply into the knowledge and observance of his words of inexhaustible wisdom, wisdom that is ever ancient and ever new. So much so that St. Paul, after having emphasized that God reserves for his “lovers” gifts never seen, heard, and imagined, continues with the authoritative and illuminating statement: “God has made him known to us through the Spirit” (1 Cor 2:10). God bestows his goods on the faithful, including the gift of himself, through the Spirit who is the first fruits of the risen Lord. Knowing this, we have nothing else to do but get down on our knees to implore for ourselves and for all our brothers and sisters in Christ this supreme divine gift. Indeed, we are invited to pray assiduously every day, especially in this strong time of Easter, for the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of wisdom, of love, of divine peace.

3. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.”

The third and final gift that Jesus reveals to his disciples in today’s Gospel is his peace. The theme is very timely in our world today, afflicted by various wars. However, it is even more relevant precisely from the memorable speech that Pope Leo XIV solemnly announced on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica immediately after his election. How fresh still is the phrase with which he began: “Peace be with you all”. This keyword “peace”, repeated 10 times in the speech of an emotional, newly elected Pope to the whole world, refers to the Peace of the Risen Lord, as he himself explains:

Peace be with you all. Dear brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the Risen Christ, the good shepherd who gave his life for the flock of God. I, too, would like this greeting of peace to enter our hearts, your families, all people, wherever they are, all peoples, all the earth. Peace be with you. This is the peace of the Risen Christ. A disarmed peace and a disarming, humble, and persevering peace. It comes from God. God, who loves us all unconditionally.

These are truly moving words that resonate, in some ways, as an extension of Christ’s own wish to his disciples after his Resurrection, and also here, in the context of the Last Supper. Here too, now we have nothing else to do but open our hearts to welcome the peace of Christ, to guard it zealously in our hearts with the help of the Holy Spirit, so that we can radiate it to all our brothers and sisters on our journey of life. Thus, let us walk together with our new Pope, also inspired by his invitation in his aforementioned speech, “as a united church, always seeking peace, justice, always seeking to work as men and women faithful to Jesus Christ, without fear to proclaim the Gospel, to be missionaries.” And so be it. Amen!

Useful points to consider:

Catechism of the Catholic Church

260 The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity. But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity: “If a man loves me”, says the Lord, “he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him” (Jn 14:23). […]

Pope Francis, Regina Caeli, Saint Peter’s Square, Domenica, Sunday, 26 May 2019

In what does the Holy Spirit’s mission, which Jesus promises as a gift, consist? He describes it himself: “he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you”. Throughout his earthly life, Jesus already passed on all that he wanted to entrust to the Apostles: he fulfilled divine Revelation, namely, all that the Father wanted to impart to mankind with the incarnation of the Son. The Holy Spirit’s task is to remind, that is, to enable full understanding and to induce us to concretely implement Jesus’ teachings. And this is also precisely the mission of the Church, which she accomplishes through a precise way of life, characterized by a few requirements: faith in the Lord and observance of his Word; docility to the action of the Holy Spirit, who constantly renders the Risen Lord alive and present; acceptance of his peace and the witness borne to it through an attitude of openness and of encounter with the other.

To accomplish all of this the Church cannot remain static but, with the active participation of each baptized person, she is called to act as a community on a journey, enlivened and sustained by the light and power of the Holy Spirit who makes all things new. It is a matter of freeing oneself from worldly bonds represented by our views, our strategies, our objectives that often burden the journey of faith, and to place ourselves in docile listening to the Word of the Lord. Thus it is God’s Spirit who guides us and guides the Church, so that her authentic, beautiful and luminous face may shine, as Christ wished. […]

Pope Francis, Homily, “How does the world give peace, and how does the Lord give it?” Tuesday, 12 May 2020

Before leaving the Lord greets His followers and gives the gift of peace (see Jn 14:27-31), the Lord’s peace: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid (v. 27). It is not universal peace, that peace without wars that we all want there to be forever, but the peace of the heart, the peace of the soul, the peace that each one of us has inside. And the Lord gives it, but, He emphasises, “not as the world gives” (v. 27). How does the world give peace and how does the Lord give it? Are they different forms of peace? Yes.

The world gives you “inner peace” – we are talking about this, peace in your life, living with your “heart at peace” – it gives you inner peace as if it were your own possession, like something that is yours and isolates you from others, that you keep for yourself, a personal acquisition: I am at peace. And without realiszing it you close yourself up in that peace, it is a peace that is only for you, for each person; it is a solitary peace, it is a peace that makes you serene, even happy. And in this tranquillity, in this happiness, it can lull you to sleep, it anaesthetizes you and makes you stay within yourself in a certain tranquillity. It is a bit selfish: peace for me, closed up in myself. This is how the world gives it to you (see v. 27). It is a costly peace, because you must continually change the “instruments of peace”: when you are enthusiastic about something, one thing gives you peace, then it ends and you have to find another. It is costly because it is temporary and sterile.

Instead, the peace that Jesus gives is another thing. It is a peace that puts you in motion: it does not isolate you, it puts you in motion, it makes you go towards others, it creates community, it creates communication. The world’s peace is costly, whereas Jesus’s is freely given, it is free; it is a gift from the Lord, the peace of the Lord. It is fruitful, it always leads you forward. […]