5^th Sunday of Easter (C); May 15, 2022

Acts 14:21-27.  Ps 145.  Rv 21:1-5.  Jn 13:31-35

Deacon Jim McFadden

            Near the end of the mesmerizing German film Downfall (2005), as Soviet troops close in on Berlin, the focus of the film shifts from the battlefield to the Fuhrer’s secret underground office, where Hitler and his inner circle spent their finals days and died.  In a scene that helped earn the film an Oscar nomination, the actor Bruno Ganz, a gentle soul who has played sad eyed romantics or weary idealists in a film career of 30 years, delivers an unhinged, epic tantrum that blames Germany’s defeat on everyone, except for himself.  He leashes his fury on Germany’s military commanders, the SS, rank-and-file soldiers and finally the German people themselves.  Based on a memoir by Trudl Junge of her experiences of being Hitler’s secretary, Ganz gives a riveting performance that is believable not because it was historically accurate, but because it is the way most people expect a defeated man to behave.  Recriminations, blame, rage, conspiracy theories, and a sense of unimpeachability are all too common in leaders at every level.

            The context of this Sunday’s Gospel reading might have suggested a Downfall-style rant at this point of John’s narrative.  After repeated confrontations with religious authorities in Jerusalem, Jesus has gone into hiding (cf. Jn 11:54).  Now, having gathered in secret with his disciples, he announces that he will be betrayed and identifies the betrayer as one of the Twelve

(cf. Jn 13:27). Not much further into the narrative, he reveals that Peter, whom he as designated to be the foundation of his Church, will deny him three times.  At this stage, one would expect a statement of disappointment or regret, or a lashing out at the disciples for their disloyalty and cowardice. One might imagine a leader who rallies his followers with calls for insurrection and vengeance.

            Instead, Jesus speaks to them of love.  John goes to great pains to show how Jesus acted in love even as he faced death.  After washing his Apostles feet and after Judas left, Jesus says, “love one another.  As I have loved you, so you should also love one another” (v. 34b). Jesus calls this a new commandment, but why?  We knew that he cobbled the Great Commandment from the Old Testament—namely the Shema (Dt 6:4) and Leviticus 19:18b). What makes his commandment novel  is the addition: “as if have loved you,” “love one another as I have loved you.”  The novelty is that this is how God relates to us to the point that he gives his life for us.  It is God’s universal love without any conditions or limitations, which reaches its culmination on the Cross.  If you really want to know just how much God loves you, gaze upon Christ crucified.  In that moment of extreme abasement and in that moment of total surrender to his Father’s will, the beloved Son of God showed and gave to the world the fulness of love.

            We sometimes think that we are the ones who are seeking God.  But, in reality, it is Jesus who loves us first—God always takes the initiative.  He loves us despite our frailties, our limitations, our betrayals, our human weaknesses as we seek happiness by pursuing the goods of the world.  It was he who ensured that we could participate in his boundless love by giving us the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life.  Strengthened by the Paraclete, we can live the new commandment.  He asks us to love on another, not so much with our love, but with his, which the Holy Spirit instills in our hearts if we come to him in faith.  In this way—and only in this way—can we love one another not only as we love ourselves but as he loved us. Without grace, it’s just not possible.  And, thus filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with his Resurrected presence, we can spread the Good News everywhere;  we can bring the seed of his love that renews relationships between people, no matter how strained they may be.  Despite the existential concerns of environmental degradation, threats of nuclear warfare, and horrific wars in Ukraine and elsewhere (cf. Yemen), and global pandemic, his love opens horizons of hope, which is not pie-in-the-sky aspiration but is grounded in who God is!  His love makes us new men, new women, brothers and sisters in the world and makes us into the People of God, that is the Church, in which everyone is called to love Christ and to love one another in him. 

            Brothers and sisters, Jesus is making “all things new.”  Now at the moment of his apparent downfall, Jesus does not behave as one might expect.  There are no tantrums or demands for vengeances, but only commands for his disciples to love.  This is the only way that will remake Creation.  

            Love is the key to our Catholic  faith.  Without the love that Jesus revealed through his Incarnation, Christianity is a jumble of practices, rules, traditions, and teachings  that in themselves are not coherent nor do they inspire.  But, with his love, everything comes together and the teachings of Christ draw his disciples ever closer to God and neighbor.  For those who love as Jesus did, death is no downfall.  Now, we have the invitation to a new life of eternal life: now and forever! Amen.