Sixth Sunday of Easter at Holy Spirit

The final wishes or words of a loved one near death have a way of remaining with us.   Powerful words between the dying and the living is a sacred moment.   I can think of a parishioner whose last words to his wife were: “I love you.”  His last words to me were: “I am ready to go home to God.”  These beautiful last words of this parishioner are seared in my memory.

The Gospel today are the last words of Jesus as he spoke to his disciples at the Last Supper on the night before he died.  This is Jesus’ going away conversation with his disciples.  Listen again to the last words of Jesus to His disciples: “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.  Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”

Have you ever thought about the gift you would pass to your loved ones?  Many of us have a will in which we carefully think what to do with your assets after your death.  It goes without saying that it is a good idea to have a will.  But when we think about a will, we usually think about our material assets and who gets what.  Today’s Gospel is taken from the last will and testament of Jesus in His conversation with his apostles.

The farewell gift of Jesus was a not a bequest of his earthly goods.  It was a gift far more important.

But even so, Jesus is departing from this earth and, as every dying person, wishes to reveal a gift.    Jesus names peace as what he wants to leave.  He immediately specifies it as my peace.  It is not like the peace of this world.   Whenever everything is going well, we can manage a certain amount of inner calm.  However, when bad times come, calm is replaced by anxiety and fear.  We shake with the wind, vacillate with the circumstances.
Peace is a complicated word with many interpretations.  We deploy our well-equipped military around the world as peacekeepers.  Some people passionately fight for uncontrolled gun ownership which they believe will ensure peace.  Yet despite all of our energy and resources we put into protecting ourselves, we still are not at peace.
 Perhaps we are looking for peace in the wrong places.  Jesus urges, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”  His words refocus us to the question.  “What needs to happen in our hearts so that we can find peace?”  The peace that Jesus brings begins and ends with love. 

Tensions in families are often unavoidable.  However, which is more likely to bring reassuring healing to this friction – anger and revenge, or compassion and forgiveness?   Turbulence in the stock markets can leave us greedily scrambling for an economic advantage, or we can humbly trust God to provide for our needs.

Stress can keep us up at night, damage our health and suck the joy out of life.  But what if we enjoyed the peace that only God can give and it is a peace that is rooted in the conviction that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  This non-abandoning presence of Good is revealed in the cross of Christ and is the source of our inner peace.
What is the peace that Jesus brings?  With hectic schedules, where time for family, friends, work, study, errands – and relaxation – must be planned for each day, we look for ways to simplify our lifestyles to find some peace.  Banks and investment services offer any number of services to manage our money so that we can have “peace of mind.”
The peace Jesus gives is not imposed but given as a gift, not just a brief vacation but a centering peace in which Jesus says to his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
We today live in the same space that Jesus was speaking with his disciples.  The Lord does not leave us orphans.  Rather he sends the Holy Spirit to be with us all our days.  The inner gift of peace is the Lord’s lasting legacy to us.

But the peace that is Jesus’s gift for us can only be given birth by living the Gospel.  A beautiful example of the Christian dream of peace can be seen in the first Scripture reading taken from the Acts of the Apostle about life in the early Christian community.  The Church worked out a new peace through disagreement.  Each side was given a chance to represent its position and each side was listened to.  In the end, each side also gave up some of its demands, so that a new consensus emerged.  Christians, it was decided, need not follow all Jewish customs (like circumcision) but they need to follow some which were considered essential.  Disagreement was not crushed or avoided but acknowledged, and people of good will were led to a compromise.

Let us pray for a deep trust in God’s promise of peace and strive in our way to see it a reality.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote a pastoral letter sometime ago entitled:  The Challenge of Peace:  God’s Promise and our Response.  The Bishops state: “Peacemaking is not an optional commitment.  It is a requirement of our faith.  We are called to be peacemakers, not by some movement of the moment, but by our Lord Jesus. 
There is both blessing and responsibility in Christ’s love.  Jesus unconditionally gives us His love so we can know and grow in love.  The gift we have been given is meant to be shared so that others can know and grow in peace.  Where and how are you as a Christian being called to share your love and promote the peace of Christ in our world today?

For us at the parish community of the Holy Spirit, we seek at all times to be guided by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.  Like the first Christian communities from the accounts in the Acts of the Apostles, all need to be able to express their convictions; we need to listen to one another;  decisions need to be made under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and, most of all, we need to embrace the peace that only God can give and share our love with one another.