May 14, 2011 - Saturday Meditation (What does it mean to be a friend of Jesus?)

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May 14, 2011 - Saturday Meditation (What does it mean to be a friend of Jesus?)

Sections - The Daily B.R.E.A.D.

Written by Bobot Apit

Friday, 13 May 2011 23:13

What does it mean for Jesus to call us friend? It means he loves us with the same love that the Father loves Him. He loves us with life-giving, redeeming love. He cares for us absolutely. But how do we know if we are one of His friends? Are you a friend of Jesus?

Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle

Acts 1:15-17, 20-26

Psalm 113:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8

John 15:9-17 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 This I command you, to love one another.

Meditation by Eileen Burke-Sullivan

During the Easter Season certain feasts are on the calendar because they call us to celebrate our roots in the period of the Acts of the Apostles. Today’s feast of St. Matthias is one of those. Usually a saint’s feast is placed on their death day (the day they presumably entered eternal life), but we know next to nothing about Matthias’ life or death. Luke tells us that Peter identified the “credentials” for being an Apostle involved having been with the followers of Jesus from the beginning, serving as an eye witness to the Resurrection – so among those to whom Jesus appeared during his days following Easter – and having been chosen by Jesus. So they pick two candidates and let Jesus (now Ascended to the Father) choose. They enact this by prayer and by drawing lots.

What is more important than how he was chosen is that we know from Luke’s witness about Matthias in the book of Acts is that he was a friend of Jesus “from the beginning until this very day.” So he was one of those one hundred and twenty men and women in the upper room upon whom the Holy Spirit descended. Today’s Gospel invites us to ponder that relationship more closely. What does it mean for Jesus to call us friend? It means he loves us with the same love that the Father loves Him. He loves us with life-giving, redeeming love. He cares for us absolutely.

But how do we know if we are one of His friends? The criteria Jesus establishes according to John’s witness in today’s Gospel, is whether we keep Jesus’ commandments – just as He kept the Father’s commandments. But what are Jesus’ commandments? They are scattered throughout the Gospels, but they are clear and we have been reminded of them over the last few weeks: to forgive anyone who offends us, at least 490 (or so) times a day; to eat the bread broken in Jesus’ memory and to share His cup poured out for the redemption of the world; to serve one another in the manner of the lowliest household slave willing even to kneel and wash the other’s feet; to proclaim the good news of God’s love for us and bring to Baptism those who are given the Spirit of faith; to take up the cross daily and follow Jesus to the death of our own plans, dreams and certainties in order to fulfill the Father’s will; to give bread to the hungry and drink to the thirsty whoever they may be, to forgive our enemies and do good to those who harm us; to address God as Abba and to trust as a small child utterly trusts a good parent. Above all, to love one another with the same intensity as Jesus loves each one of us.

He promised to send the Spirit to make this friendship flourish in us; the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Love – we are not left alone in fear of our enemies or the violence of the world. We don’t even have to judge anyone else’s goodness – we can leave that to God. Why is it so hard to be a friend of Jesus when it fulfills our deepest longings, when it brings the perfection of joy? Because in the end the condition for such friendship for each of us is the same condition that Jesus met: laying down my life for those I love – and even for those I didn’t know that I love – and taking it up again in God’s time and God’s place, not my own. Ignatius said it so well: “Take Lord, receive . . . my entire will.” I don’t know about you, but giving over all that control just isn’t easy for me, even for such a glorious reward as intimacy with Jesus.

St. Matthias, help us to follow the path of friendship with Jesus. Amen.