It is chiefly by asking questions and in provoking explanations that the master must open the mind of the pupil, make him work, and use his thinking powers, form his judgement, and make him find out for himself the answer."
- Jean Baptiste de La Salle -
(What kinds of questions are calling you to growth at this time? How might they be the work of the Master?)
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ACTS 1:15-17, 20-26 Ps 113:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
JN 15:9-17
Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
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 joy might be in you
and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.”
Reflection on the Scriptures
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After the resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, the first Christian community emerges in response to Peter’s preaching. In writing this history, Luke makes a point of emphasizing that the Jerusalem Christian community is drawn from that crowd of Jewish pilgrims gathered for the Jewish feast of Pentecost from every corner of the diaspora (Acts 2:5-11). At the
center of that community stand the primary witnesses the resurrection of Jesus—the new Twelve, the Eleven plus Matthias, who was with the early disciples since the baptism of John (Acts 1:21-22).
The New Testament tells no more about Matthias, but there is no doubt that, as one who had been following Jesus from the beginning, his sense of himself and his purpose matched that address of Jesus in today’s gospel: It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I
command you: love one another. Jesus is addressing not just the original Twelve but all disciples, which includes you and me. The mission is simple: bear fruit! And the means: Love one another and continue the mission!
- by Dennis Hamm, S.J.
Revelations of Divine Love
- by Julian of Norwich
Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 74
There is no dread that fully pleaseth God in us but reverent dread.
Desire we of our Lord God to dread Him reverently, to love Him meekly, to trust in Him mightily; for when we dread Him reverently and love Him meekly our trust is never in vain. For the more that we trust, and the more mightily, the more we please and worship our Lord that we trust in. And if we fail in this reverent dread and meek love (as God forbid we should!), our trust shall soon be misruled for the
time. And therefore it needeth us much to pray our Lord of grace that we may have this reverent dread and meek love, of His gift, in heart and in work. For without this, no man may please God.
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