I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. (John 15: 15)
“How does God love me, and how do I reflect this love to others?” is the question that Jesus explains in today’s Gospel (John 15:12-17). It is a love expressed, not in abstract concepts, but in everyday relationships. Through our baptism, Jesus makes us ongoing participants in his relationship with his Father – not as unworthy fearful servants but as friends called to an intimacy expressed in love.
St Eugene’s daily sentiment:
“May the love of Jesus Christ be ever in our hearts!” (1814)
This led him to his vocation
‘that called me to devote myself to the service and to the happiness of my neighbor whom I loved with the love of Jesus Christ for all people.” (1839)
We are living these days in hope and in fearful confusion: we strive to begin to restore normality to our activities and interactions, and yet we still face the unknown menace of the virus.
In this hope and uncertainty let us remember that what really counts is the conviction that we are truly “called friends” and it is from this vision that we are invited to live each of these days.
This morning I have found myself focusing on a few words that Frank has offered: “Through our baptism, Jesus makes us ongoing participants in his relationship with his Father… as friends called to an intimacy expressed in love.” Like water through a dam the words burst forth tumbling over themselves to be said and heard. They give expression and life to this vision.
Birth and Baptism
My little life-boat on the sea has been rocked, I have been floating along in a mist of love which wraps around me like a cocoon.
The sea mists embracing me in a cocoon of tenderness – like a baby in the womb. Aware of others, muted sounds of weeping and laughter, a part of me yet separate, kept at a distance;
and so I focus on the love and the intimacy of being within it.
Brief small windows opening out of the mists,
gently reminding me that I am a part of a much greater sea of life.
A life whose sirens call my name – not to entrap – simply to invite.
I am unsure of letting go of the mists and listening to their call.
This morning the mists part,
a gentle breeze has pushed me through and clear of them;
I find myself with others,
they are all around me.
I have somehow joined them,
becoming a part of a deeper intimacy
through them, with them and in them.
God still with me.
There is a shared joy that I have floated into and become a part of.
Birth and Baptism.
Inevitable, ever changing,
like a breath that simply is.
For a moment
turning back to the mists,
waiting for me when they are needed.
Still I am here.
I look at all around me and you are here,
in them, in me, in us.
Beloved.