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Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter
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May 9, 2022"Celebrating Life"
Most of us have heard the phrase “a celebration of life.” It is certainly an apt description of what being a follower of Jesus is all about. Both Scripture readings today end on this note. In the reading from Acts, once the Jewish Christians are convinced that the Gentiles have received the Holy Spirit, they say: “God has then granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles too” (Acts 11:18). Jesus concludes his discourse about the True Shepherd and the sheep gate with the words: “I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
Much as we equate life with youthful vigor, mobility and all the accompanying effervescence, life (as in “celebration of life”) must be something more profound, often even hidden. For Christians, the Spirit is the life-giver and that life, joyfully, can persist and thrive even when vigor and elastic limbs have disappeared. The life that Jesus gives through the Spirit is within, a pulse of the life of Father, Son, and Spirit transmitted to us to bear us up now and bear us ultimately to the heart of God.
Faith can remind us that even when we feel “dead” (as we say), physically drained and in pain, we are alive in the Spirit with the Life Jesus has given us. We pray that it may show itself in our patience, love, courage, trust and hope – and maybe even, if it isn’t too presumptuous, in our good cheer.
