Daily Reflection Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

We have within us the desire to know and worship someone greater than we are. For some, that deeper attraction rests in one or two people; for others, the allure is what satisfies instincts such as food, drugs, drink. In today’s first reading, Luke tells us that the Athenians desire a god, so they manufacture the Unknown God. Now the question is: whom do we worship? If our answer is the God of justice, mercy and genuine love, then surely our daily actions show this love. Yet, each one of us has been created differently, uniquely. As we deepen our relationship with God, we need to understand ourselves more clearly. Perhaps, in our time of prayer we ask God to show us our specific personality gifts. Maybe we have allowed worry, doubt, or depression to focus on the negative instead of on those innate gifts we were given but have not owned. We could care for a senior citizen just by listening in a conversation; offer a ride to the doctor for someone who doesn’t have a car; look in on an elderly person who lives alone; be patient with a friend bemoaning the Mets’ losses!  Unlike the Athenians that Paul speaks of, we do have a real God, a God who knows and loves each one of us personally and unconditionally.
    The community of John, writers of this gospel, tell us that Jesus has much more to tell his disciples. After experiencing fear, abandonment, betrayal during the passion and death of Jesus, they realize their own human weaknesses. They now drink in what Jesus has to share of his divinity. His followers know that they cannot experience and live this truth on their own. “The Spirit of truth will guide you.” Yes, Jesus is giving us a foreshadowing of the coming of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost.
    Just as in the time of Paul, there is much “fake” news out there. We have within us the spirit to discern what is truth and the courage to live that truth in the most unobtrusive details of our day. We call that gift, discernment. St. Ignatius has encouraged us: “Listen to your heart; evaluate your emotions.”
     How we are in need of the Spirit of truth today! It is through living those gifts and fruits of the Spirit that we receive the courage to accentuate and live what is good in us. As we continue to go within our hearts to discern God in our midst, let us put our energies in living goodness.
 
Love consists in sharing
                                                  what one has
                                                  and what one is
                                                  with those one loves.
 
                                                  Love ought to show itself in deeds
                                                  more than in words.—St. Ignatius of Loyola