Homily notes - 5th. Sunday of Easter

Homily - 5th Sunday of Easter
 
In the first weeks after Easter, we heard the Easter stories - the discovery of the empty tomb, and the reactions of the disciples to that discovery. We then heard about how Jesus appeared to the apostles and to others. Now, as the Easter season continues, we  hear from Jesus' talk at the last supper as recorded in John's gospel. That may seem at first impression to be going backwards, but it isn't. Because it was at the Last Supper that Jesus prepared us for his leaving us, and for the coming of the Holy Spirit, and for our life together as his disciples in his Church.
 
There are many things that can be said of these readings today, but I'd like to focus on only one of them: who are we?
 
If I asked you who you are, how would you answer? You might tell me your name - I'm Tom.  You might tell me whose family you belong to - I'm Jimmy's daughter. You might tell me what you do for a living - I'm a nurse, I’m a student, I’m a fireman. Or you might tell me some characteristic about yourself - I'm the one who is always cleaning up around here.
 
Now, if I asked you, who are you as a Christian, as a Catholic, what would you say? The gospel and the reading from St. Peter give us a large part of the answer.
 
As a Catholic, I am a person who has a strong, intimate, relationship with Jesus Christ. For each of us, that began in baptism, and once that relationship began, it never ends. It lasts our whole life long.  Even if we sin - even if we reject it – and there are costs, penalties for rejecting it - the relationship continues. This relationship is so strong that it is stronger than death itself. Our relationship with Jesus Christ  lasts beyond our death: it is a relationship for eternity, a relationship that begins once, in time, and once begun, it continues for all time.
 
Jesus says that he goes to prepare a place for us, and that in his Father’s house there are many mansions. When I was young, I thought he was speaking of real estate. I thought that he meant that you got a little house if you were just OK, but you got a really nice one on a good plot of land if you were better. But Jesus means something deeper. He is using language that every first century Jew would have understood immediately. He is saying that his relationship with his followers - and his followers assembled together in the church – his relationship with you and with me is as close as the relationship of a man and his wife. REPEAT.
 
In those days, a man became engaged to a woman, and then he went off to prepare a place for her. He went to build, or perhaps to buy, or to restore,  a house. He would not marry his betrothed until he had prepared the place, and when he did, he came back to get her, and the wedding began.
 
Do you remember those parables about the bridegroom coming at an hour they did not expect, or about the young women waiting for the bridegroom and running out of oil -- well they were built on the same idea. The groom will come! The Lord will come! [Though in contrast to some, we believe Jesus when he says no one knows the time or the hour. And the idea of ‘rapture’ is not part of Catholic belief, and dates back only to the 1890s among some – and only some – Protestants.]
 
"I am going to prepare a place for you" and "I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am, you also may be."
 
Who is the Catholic Christian? The Catholic is a man, woman, young person or child who has been called into this deep, intimate, unending bond with Jesus Christ.  How wonderful is that?
 
This gospel goes on to say that when we are united to Christ, we are united also to God the Father, for Jesus says "I am in the Father and the Father is in me."
 
Jesus is the Way. Jesus is our way. Our way to what?
 
 Our way to the Father, our way to eternal life,
he is our way of life,
he is our way to becoming who we really are, in the core of our being, following Jesus is the way we become who we were created to be.
 
Following Jesus is how we thrive and flourish in our inmost selves. The Gospel is indeed, good news.
 
St. Peter's letter also testifies to this. He focuses on us corporately, i.e. on us together as Church. Christ is the living stone of the psalms, he says - the stone rejected by the builders, but that has become the cornerstone on which the church is built.
 
And we are called to be living stones, built up together, joined together as stones in a building are joined together, with Crist, into the Church. As members of the Church, I.e. Of Christ's body, we are " a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,  a people set apart." together we are - a new creation, tied to each other in Christ by new bonds, bonds not of earthly family or people, but as followers of the way of Jesus. [expand]
 
I began by asking "who are you?" and I gave some ways people answer that question. The best answer is: I am a person chosen by Jesus to be intimately close to him, and who follows His way of life. And by the way, my name is __________.