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Fifth Sunday of Easter (C)

May 18, 2025

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Introit

Rite of Sprinkling

Gloria

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us,
that those you were pleased to make new in Holy Baptism
may, under your protective care, bear much fruit
and come to the joys of life eternal.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Reading Acts 14:21-27

Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, then on to Iconium and Antioch. 22 There they strengthened the souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue in the faith, saying, “It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God.” 23 And after they had appointed elders for them in each church, with prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the Lord in whom they had come to believe. 24 Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. 25 When they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia. 26 From there they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had completed. 27 When they arrived, they called the church together and related all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith for the Gentiles.

Responsorial Psalm 145:8-9,10-11,12-13

R/. I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

Second Reading Rev 21:1-5a

Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” 5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

Alleluia Jn 13:34

Gospel Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35

Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 31 During the supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33 “Little children, I am with you only a little longer. 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Catena Nova

Christ commands us to love as he did, putting neither reputation, nor wealth, not anything whatever before love of our brothers and sisters. If need be we must even be prepared to face death for our neighbor's salvation as did our Savior's blessed disciples and those who followed in their footsteps. To them the salvation of others mattered more than their own lives and they were ready to do anything or to suffer anything to save souls that were perishing.... The Savior urged us to practice this love that transcends the law as the foundation of true devotion to God. He knew that only in this way could we become pleasing in God's eyes, and that it was by seeking the beauty of the love implanted in us by himself that we should attain to the highest blessings. (St. Cyril of Alexandria)

Charity makes the heart expansive and generous, not double or narrow. The soul who is pierced by this tender arrow does not show one thing with her face and tongue when she has another in her heart. Nor does she serve or behave deceitfully or ambitiously with regard to her neighbors, because charity is open with everyone. Therefore the soul who possesses charity never falls into pain or distressing sadness, nor does she argue with obedience; no, she is obedient even to the point of death. (St. Catherine of Siena)

IT is a strange characteristic of persons in love that they take a much greater pleasure in their loneliness than in the company of others. For if they meet together in the presence of others with whom they need have no intercourse, and from whom they have nothing to conceal, and if those others neither address them nor interfere with them, yet the very fact of their presence is sufficient to rob the lovers of all pleasure in their meeting. The cause of this lies in the fact that love is the union of two persons, who will not communicate with each other if they are not alone. And now the soul, having reached the summit of perfection, and liberty of spirit in God, all the resistance and contradictions of the flesh being subdued, has no other occupation or employment than indulgence in the joys of its intimate love of the Bridegroom. (St. John of the Cross)

[Love] is entirely turned towards God, but the created spirit embraces also itself in knowledge, bliss and self-acceptance. The surrender to God is at the same time surrender to one’s own self as loved by God and to the whole of creation. (St. Edith Stein/Benedicta of the Cross)

To abide in love means to have open eyes, to be able to see something that only a few see, namely, the outstretched, begging hands of the others who are along the way, and now not be able to do anything else but to act, to help, to do one’s duty, using everything one has. That may be here or there. Most important is that, wherever it is, one can always allow oneself to be interrupted by God. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

The first thing that must strike a non-Christian about a Christian's faith is that it is all too daring. It is too beautiful to be true: The mystery of being, unveiled as absolute love, coming down to wash the feet and the souls of its creatures; a love that assumes the whole burden of our guilt and hate, that accepts the accusations that shower down; the disbelief that veils God again when he has revealed himself; all the scorn and contempt that nails down his incomprehensible movement of self-abasement- all this absolute love accepts in order to excuse his creature before himself and before the world. It is too much of a good thing; nothing in the world can justify a metaphysic of that order, and not therefore the sign called 'Jesus of Nazareth', isolated, so hard to decipher, so inadequately supported by history. To erect so magnificent a structure on such flimsy foundations is to go beyond the bounds of reason. (Hans Urs von Balthasar)

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. (C.S. Lewis)

Homily

"All's well that ends well." So said Shakespeare ini his play by that title. I suspect most playwrights and screenwriters know that, however much tragedy their stories contain, the final scenes best conclude on an upbeat rather than tragic note. The New Testament has a similar script, believe it or not. It’s called the Book of Revelation — replete with epic battles between the forces of good and evil, endless violence and, of course, the promise of a final triumph of the heroic over the villainous. I have begun to think of Revelation as one grand opera with even more interesting characters than Mozart or Wagner could ever create – not to mention Hollywood.

Of course, the Bible has many prior installments leading up to the climactic grand finale in the Book of Revelation. The story begins in Eden, moves to Ur of the Chaldeans where Abraham and Sarah lived, then to Egypt, on to the Promised Land, interrupted by the Babylonian Exile, resumed under Ezra and Nehemiah, rescued once more by the Maccabees, until the sequel — starring the Christ and his followers — makes its appearance in a yet-to-be-finished series of spin-offs featuring their continuing adventures. And yes, there are plenty of heroes and villains to keep the plot moving -- mostly via an infinity of wars and persecutions, scandals and setbacks, reforms and renewals.

So yes, Revelation makes one thing pretty clear: the future is not pretty, at least not this side of the curtain before it falls on the Final Act. And though biblical literalists like to map out a precise chronology of the future based on their fantastic reading of the Bible’s last book – something that has been going on for a long time – I do fear that the Last Days will be truly apocalyptic. And without falling into the fundamentalist trap so popular these days, it does seem to me that the prospects of nuclear annihilation, impending environmental collapse, and the specter of another pandemic all make such scenarios quite plausible as human history rushes to its Endgame.

One thing, however, is clear: the followers of Jesus, the Lamb of the Apocalypse, will share in the struggle to the point of shedding their own blood mingled with his. As the great theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, reminds us in his grand dramatics of the biblical story, “Believers must bear witness in their lives and in their blood, thus fully incarnating their faith as they pit it against utter, satanic dis-incarnation.”

Christians, of course, realized this from the moment the Cross began to extend its reach into Palestine and beyond: from the stoning of St. Stephen, to Nero’s Circus, to Hitler’s death camps, to terrorists prepared to kill the infidel, to Putin's expansionist project in Ukraine, to Netanyahu's genocidal policies in Gaza and, finally, to the ongoing witness of the church’s martyrs which continues apace down to our own times. Indeed, the struggle “commenced in heaven at the beginning of time, and continues now on earth, where all the evil done by man represent so many episodes in this immeasurable drama of infinite love on the one side, and of malice incomprehensible on the other” (Bl. Ildefonso Schuster; The Sacramentary).

And while the leadership of Pope Francis concerning the environment and now Pope Leo's evident prioritizing of peacemaking may well be the most urgent form of witness as our own dystopian future unfolds, the new commandment, to love one another (G) will always be the church’s true weapon of choice. From the moment the nascent church opened the door of faith to the Gentiles (I), beginning at Antioch, something new was born in the world: a movement that would break down walls of hostility, eliminating the borders that separated Jew from Gentile, slave from free, male from female Such love, far from being some mushy feel good thing, always means the hard work of embracing the “other” -- despite the numerous failures that mar the church’s history:

[We should not] underestimate how extraordinary the religious ethos of the earliest Christians was with regard to social order, or fail to give them credit for the attempts they did make to erase the distinctions in social dignity that separated persons of different rank from one another, but that they believed Christ had abolished…. [A] profound revision of the moral and conceptual categories by which human beings understand themselves and one another and their places within the world…took root and grew principally in consciences rather than in political arrangements…. [T]he new world being brought into being in the gospels is a world in which the grand cosmic architecture of prerogative and power has been superseded by a new and positively “anarchic” order: one in which the glory of God can reveal itself in a crucified slave, and in which, therefore, we are forced to see the face of God in the forsaken of the world…. In him, we are afforded a vision of humanity in its widest and deepest scope, one in which the full nobility and mystery and beauty of the human countenance—the human person—wholly resides in each unique instance of our common nature. (David Bentley Hart, “Human Dignity Was a Rarity Before Christianity”)

So even if it is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God (I), John the Seer could still say with confidence, he saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, [where God] will wipe every tear from [our] eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away (II). Something to remember here at the wedding feast of the Lamb who was slain, yet lives, and whose Blood dyes our baptismal garment, giving us a glimpse of what lies behind the scenes, as we await the last line of the drama, "Behold, I make all things new." (II)

Intercessions (Joe Milner; The Sunday website)

For the Church: that we may be known as disciples of Jesus by the love and care that we show one another.

For the grace to love as God has loved us: that we may have the courage to lay down our lives in service of one another and for those who are most in need.

For those who strive to manifest a New Heavens and a New Earth: that God will inspire those working to end injustice and poverty, assist the elderly and homebound, and be a source of hope for all who are suffering.

For all who are caught in human trafficking: that God will free them from bondage, help someone to recognize their need, and restore them to loved ones.

For all who have experienced abuse: that God will heal them, give them new courage, and renew their vision for a future filled with God’s promises.

For all who have been displaced by war, famine, or natural disasters: that God will protect them from harm, touch the hearts of many to reach out and assist them, and lead them to places of safety.

For good stewardship of natural resources: that we may honor God’s work of creation through caring for the earth, water, and air that we share so that all may enjoy and share in its benefits.

For peace: that God will turn minds and hearts from violence, open new ways for dialogue about wounds and grievances, and help all who are burdened with anger to find healthy ways to express it.

We behold your glory, O God, in the love shown by your Son, lifted up on the cross and exalted on high. Increase our love for one another, that both in name and in truth we may be disciples of the risen Lord Jesus and so reflect by our lives the glory that is yours. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen. (ICEL; 1998)

Offertory Motet (Thomas Tallis)

A new commandment give I unto you, saith the Lord, that ye love together, as I have loved you, that e'en so ye love one another. By this shall ev'ry man know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

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