Preferring Nothing to Christ

John 15:9-11

‘If you keep my commandments
you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
I have told you this
so that my own joy may be in you
and your joy be complete.’

By this stage in Eastertide we have heard a good deal of John’s Gospel. There are some overlaps and repetitions between the weekday and Sunday liturgies. We’ve heard parts of today’s Gospel already. The themes of keeping Christ’s commandments and remaining in his love weave in and out of each other. Today the element of ‘joy’ is added.

I associate pure joy with small children and this in turn reminds me of this passage from the Tales of the Hasidim:

Said the maggid to Rabbi Zusya, his disciple: “I cannot teach you the principles of service. But a little child and a thief can show you what they are:

From the child you can learn three things:

— He is merry for no particular reason;
— Never for a moment he is idle;
— When he needs something, he demands it vigorously.

Being merry for no particular reason is one of the special gifts of childhood. The joy of one young child spreads so easily to others and to adults too. I remember as a child feeling that I might burst with joy and excitement. When you reach adulthood that joy takes on a different shape. It isn’t nearly as frequent and there might be some foreboding mixed in too.

The idea Jesus might find his joy in us is something that I don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about. That Jesus wants our ‘joy to be complete’ speaks to me of the depths of the Paschal mystery: every joy and every sorrow that we experience unites us ever closer to Christ.

How can you live in Christ’s joy today?

Image: Senjuti Kundu, Unsplash

You can read the full extract from The Tales of the Hasidim here: https://www.jhom.com/topics/thieves/hasidic.htm

John 15:1-8

Every branch in me that bears no fruit
he cuts away,
and every branch that does bear fruit
he prunes to make it bear even more.
You are pruned already,
by means of the word that I have spoken to you.

It took me a while as a novice to learn the difference between cutting away and pruning. I’m not a natural gardener and could never really see the bigger picture of what was needed. I felt safest with weeding. I realise that for many things I need to physically see an outcome before I can really understand what is needed to get there.

The time of monastic formation is an experience of pruning like you would never imagine. Everything that gave you identity before you entered is stripped away. It takes a good deal of trust to even imagine that what remains of you will bear fruit. But it does.

When Jesus speaks of us having been ‘pruned’ by the word I am reminded of those times when suddenly a very familiar text has spoken directly to my situation and pretty much demanded a course of action. There’s no turning back when this happens.

How have you been pruned by the Word?

John 14:27-31

‘Peace I bequeath to you,
my own peace I give you,
a peace the world cannot give,
this is my gift to you.

‘Oh, sister, it’s so peaceful here in the monastery.’ We hear this very often and, of course, there is a good deal of truth in this. We are a low stimulus environment with things ordered as well as they can be. The rhythm of the liturgy plays a very important part in creating the peace that people feel when they visit. Hail, rain our shine we gather to pray the psalmody. Monastics have this remarkable ability to carry on with the liturgy even if there has been some ‘outside’ disturbance; loud rain, a low flying aircraft or even a power cut won’t put us off. It’s almost as if we have a collective inner equilibrium.

St Benedict puts a great deal of store by the peace and good order of the monastery. In his Chapter On the Cellarer he urges his monks to make their requests to the cellarer reasonable and at the proper times. The job can be demanding and touches all areas of monastery life. St Benedict makes wise provision:

If the community is rather large, he should be given helpers, that with their assistance he may calmly perform the duties of his office. Necessary items or to be requested and given at the proper times, so that no one may be disquieted or distressed in the house of God.

What Benedict seems to be saying is that everyone has a part to play in creating a peaceful environment.

When Jesus speaks of peace he speaks of it as a gift. This gift is to be internalised. You can’t force someone to receive a gift. A person needs to pick it up and make it their own in some way. Jesus waits for us each to do this. Much like Benedict’s monks, we can help each other ‘so that no one may be disquieted or distressed in the house of God.’

How can you bring Christ’s peace to others today?

John 14:21-26

One of my favourite Psalms is 118/9. It’s very long and arranged as an acrostic. Some people find it a bit tedious as it is very repetitious and turns around a small list of words: law, word, will, statutes, commands, decrees and precepts. Every four lines uses at least one of these words. It’s a Psalm in praise of the Torah.

I’ve prayed this psalm for nearly 30 yrs and one of the things that I have noticed is that when I meet the words ‘commands’ and ‘word’ in the New Testament I hear them now with Old Testament resonances.

‘If anyone loves me he will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we shall come to him and make our home with him.’

The ‘word’ I am being invited to keep will ‘give me life’ (Ps 118/19. 37), ‘stands firm in the heavens’ (v.89), ‘is a lamp for my steps and a light for my path’ (v.105). The great promise in John’s Gospel is that openness to God’s word prepares a place for the Father and Son to come and make their home within us.

The place we each prepare is unique. It’s crafted from our life experiences; our joys, our sorrows, our hopes and our dreams. Each time you hear or read the Word of God that place within you changes.

Use your Bible today. Find your favourite quotations.

What is God saying to you today?

John 13:31-33a, 34-35

Today’s Gospel is just five verses. Those five verses hold within them the essence of our life in Christ: love.

I give you a new commandment:
love one another;
just as I have loved you,
you also must love one another.

Love comes in all shapes and sizes. St Benedict knew this so well. In Ch 72 of his Rule he lays out for his monks just some of the ways that they can practice love in the monastery:

No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but instead, what he judges better for someone else. To their fellow monks they show the pure love of brothers, to God loving fear; to their abbot, unfeigned and humble love. Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.

The above takes a monastic life-time. You learn it very, very gradually. And when everything feels a bit uphill, you can find solace in knowing that however feeble your attempts to love, the desire is that Christ may ‘bring us all together to everlasting life.’

Reflect on the love you have been shown throughout your life.

How do you show your love in the varied circumstances of your life?

Every single line in today’s Gospel opens up a whole thought world for me. It was hard to choose just one phrase. The First Reading and the Psalm are full of meaning too. In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles Peter sets the criteria for choosing a new apostle:

‘We must therefore choose someone who has been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus was travelling round with us, someone who was with us right from the time when John was baptising until the day when he was taken up from us – and he can act with us as a witness to his resurrection.’

It is interesting that Peter doesn’t list desired qualities or qualifications. Instead it’s connection to the group that is important, ‘someone who has been with us the whole time.’ Reading between the lines it’s perhaps someone who has been with the apostles through thick and thin, someone who was drawn to Jesus and prepared to follow him wherever he went. It’s probably safe to assume that Matthias was a friend of the disciples.

This theme of connection and close companionship is found too in the Gospel text. The setting is the Last Supper. It’s a meal shared by close friends. Jesus speaks in a language which is direct and clear; he speaks of unconditional, sacrificial love- agape. When he calls his disciples friends we move into a realm which can all understand.

I call you friends,
because I have made known to you
everything I have learnt from my Father.
You did not choose me:
no, I chose you;
and I commissioned you
to go out and to bear fruit,
fruit that will last.

Friendship with Christ is what will sustain the disciples as they take on the task of preaching the Good News.

Imagine yourself at the table with the disciples. Listen to Jesus. Listen as he calls you ‘friend’. How do you respond?

The past two years have brought the reality of death very close to us. We’ve listened to the heartbreaking stories of people dying alone and of families not being able to be at the hospital bedside of a loved one. In our culture the idea of someone dying alone is something which haunts and troubles us.

It’s into these very situations that Jesus speaks his words of comfort, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in God still and trust in me.’ However agonizing the circumstances this promise holds true. Added to these words of comfort is a promise that is easily overlooked:

‘There are many rooms in my Father’s house;
if there were not, I should have told you.
I am going now to prepare a place for you…‘

It’s the word ‘prepare’ which always strikes me. It makes me think of the times that I have prepared a room, adding the little touches that I hope will be welcoming. I love the idea of Jesus has prepared a place for each of us. Nothing is being left to chance. The love that brought us into the world now prepares a place for us.

How do you hear Christ’s promise?

In the round of the liturgical year there are certain texts which we might hear only once. John’s account of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet is one such text. We hear this at Maundy Thursday at the solemn beginning of the Triduum.

Today’s Gospel verses come straight after the washing of the feet and this context gives Jesus’ words a very particular power:

‘I tell you most solemnly,
no servant is greater than his master,
no messenger is greater than the man who sent him.’

Jesus makes his love for his disciples concrete and real by bending right down to the floor and doing what would usually be the job of a female slave. In the action of washing the disciples’ feet we have the Gospel in microcosm: serve one another in love. From the smallest deeds of simple kindness to the greatest deeds of selfless love we image Christ the Foot-washer.

How can you image Christ today?

John 12:44-50
During my time in the monastery many people have asked me to pray for them. Sometimes they are seeking a way forward and might have the choice between two good things. I have found myself praying that they might have light enough for their paths.

When Jesus speaks of himself as light he is telling us that through him we will be able to see the path we should take. He is telling us that he will show us what is good and true. John’s Gospel presents us with a clear contrast between light and darkness. Often in our own olives the contrast isn’t quite so clear. We can find that we drift into ways that we wouldn’t necessarily describe as darkness, but we wouldn’t describe them as light either. This can be a hard place to navigate. Christ’s light can bring us to a place of acknowledgment and honesty.

Where in your life would you most like Christ’s light to shine?

JOHN 10:22-30

‘If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’
I have such a lot of sympathy with the Jews of John’s Gospel when they say this. Jesus answers them in riddles and leaves them with more questions than answers. The more I sit with the Gospel texts, the more I realise that what I see plainly from my monastery vantage point was anything but clear to those who saw and heard Jesus.

Jesus makes claims about himself that shook centuries of tradition. We can list his claims and they have no such effect on us:

I am the Bread of Life

I am the Good Shepherd

I am the Light of the World

We find these on posters and prayer cards and they give us comfort. For the Jews who heard and questioned Jesus they had to go back to their source texts and see if they could make some sense. These were Messianic claims and they were challenged at their core.

A good deal of our life of faith involves doing the best we can in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. When we have to discern a new way forward we naturally look for signs and confirmations that we are on the right track. I have friends who are very good at reading the signs. I’ve always been a bit slower myself. But what I have discovered is that these friends share one thing in common: they assume the good and are expecting God to speak.
Is there any area in your life where you long for Christ to speak plainly to you?