Sunday Sermon for April 28, 2024, the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B
Readings: Acts 9:26-31; 1 Jn 3:18-24; Jn 15:1-8
In the Gospel reading today, Jesus tells us that His Father is glorified by our bearing much fruit and becoming our Lord’s disciples. This statement is of extreme importance to us because glorifying God should be essence of our lives. We live in a society where glorifying the self seems to be the priority. The results of this are painfully obvious: selfishness, arrogance, misery, lack of fulfillment, loss of joy, etc. This self-glorifying attitude has not only been detrimental to individuals, but it has resulted in near destruction of our society.
As human beings we need to learn that our joy, happiness, and fulfillment will come from glorifying God rather than self. The most perfect way to glorify God is by doing His will. To this we could all respond that the most perfect way to glorify myself is to do my own will, so why should I do someone else’s will rather than my own? Because when we do our own will, the focus is to gain something for one’s self. God’s will is solely about what is best for us. So, when we do His will, we are the ones who benefit; God, on the other hand, gets nothing from it.
God created us in such a way that what is best us is to glorify Him. This sounds absolutely egotistical. But, when we understand that He gains nothing when we do His will and glorify Him, then we see that there is nothing selfish or egotistical about it. God created us out of love, so He wills only what is best for us. That said, we must be very careful to ensure that our disposition is to do the will of God and glorify Him. By this I mean that we should not seek to do His will for a selfish reason. In other words, the idea that if God only wants what is best for me, then doing what He wants will be to my benefit and, ultimately, to my glory.
We cannot fool God, so if our intention is selfish, He knows that. Of course, if we are going to approach something selfishly, it won’t be long before we are no longer interested in even seeking the will of God. Although His will is what is best for us, very frequently we do not see it as best. When the Lord’s will is that we carry our cross, we naturally find this repugnant and seek something that will seem more pleasant.
We must make an act of the will (over and over) to truly seek to do the will of God and glorify Him. If God is glorified by our being disciples of Jesus and bearing much fruit for Him, then this should be the starting point for each of us on our spiritual journey. The first thing we note is that although we are called to bear much fruit for the Lord, Jesus tells us that unless we remain in Him not only will we not bear fruit, but we can do nothing. More than that, we become as branches that wither and are burned. So, as disciples of Christ, our first priority is to remain in Christ.
St. John, in the second reading, tells us that we remain in Jesus when we keep His commandments. Moreover, St. John says we know Jesus remains in us from the Spirit He gave us. The Holy Spirit is the life that comes through Jesus, the True Vine, and gives life to the branches, thus making them fruitful.
So, what are the commandments we need to follow in order to remain in Christ and bear much fruit? St. John tells us that we are to love, not in word or speech, but in deed and truth. It is easy to talk the talk, but it is not always so easy to put it into practice. Each person has a unique personality and a unique set of circumstances in which he or she lives, so the deeds asked of each may be very different.
We see an example of this in the first reading where most of the early Christians were afraid of Saul of Tarsus and believed he was lying about being a disciple. Because of this, and very understandably, they shied away from him. But Barnabas had the gifts and the personality to reach out to Saul, hear his story, and take him under his wing, bringing him to the apostles.
Each of us needs to pray and ask the Lord what His will is for us. Whatever it is, it will always be the best, even if we do not understand it. We need to trust, act in love and truth, and glorify God by doing His will, remaining in Christ, and bearing much fruit.
Fr. Altier’s column appears regularly in The Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly published in St. Paul, Minn. For information about subscribing to The Wanderer, please visit www.thewandererpress.com.
