A Reflection on the Readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter May 18, 2025
Reading 1: Acts 14:21-27
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13
Reading 2: Rev 21:1-5a
Our first reading this week relates to the end of Paul and Barnabas’ first missionary journey. Throughout this and subsequent journeys, we can see a pattern developing which we could call “salvation history.” Paul and Barnabas first preached to the Jews in every city they entered. Still, Jewish rejection of the gospel caused the apostles to turn to Gentiles in the community, and we are told the Gentiles received the message of salvation with joy. Reception by the Gentiles resulted in the formation of a church community, and this pattern was repeated wherever the gospel was preached.
Throughout this journey, the apostles were plagued by hostility from their fellow Jews. Some hostility was from Jews who refused to accept Christ as the Messiah, and some was from Jewish Christians who believed that any Christian had first to be a faithful Jew. I think St. Paul somewhere refers to these Jewish Christians as “Judaizers.” They believed that any Gentile who accepted Christian teaching must first be circumcised and must abide by Mosaic Law. We will see a resolution to that concept in our reading next week under the heading “Council of Jerusalem.” Because of that persecution that has continued throughout the church’s history, Paul said: “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”
In this season of Easter, we celebrate the development of the church in the first century. Once a church community was formed, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles, it needed to be guided and strengthened against the persecution of hostile Jews and Romans. In our first reading, we see Paul and Barnabas making a “pastoral visit” to the churches they had formed in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. In fact, Paul had been stoned and left for dead in Lystra by the Jews but was now returning in a pastoral visit to “strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith.” They also appointed presbyters in these communities as religious leaders to ensure the Christian message was not distorted. The pattern by which the Gentile Christian communities were formed and sustained is patterned on the Jerusalem community, as Paul and Barnabas recognized the authority of the Jerusalem church, the church founded by Peter and the apostles who had first-hand knowledge of Jesus’ teachings.
The authority and esteem by which the Jerusalem church was held is also seen in our second reading from the Book of Revelation, where John describes the church as “a holy city, anew Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” That “New Jerusalem” is the church, presided over by the one seated on the throne. This passage also describes the church as God’s dwelling place where God dwells with the human race, recalling the Prologue to John’s gospel: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
As God has acted in human history through Christ, God declares: “Behold, I make all things new.” There is a new dispensation in the world made possible through the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, which the church proclaimed throughout Christian history. Because of Christ’s Passion, the old Jewish rules concerning animal sacrifices and the restrictive laws imposed by the religious authorities no longer apply. The new dispensation is faith in Christ for forgiving sins and the commandments he gave us, leading to our salvation.
Our gospel from chapter 13 of John is the “New Commandment.” Our gospel begins with verse 31, but the verse before our passage relates to Judas’s betrayal. Verse 30 tells us that Judas took the morsel offered to him by Jesus and left the supper, and: “It was night,” indicating that Judas had passed from the true light of Christ into darkness. The “New Commandment” is that we are to love one another as Jesus loves us. God is love, and God’s presence in the world as infinite love is now to be manifested in Jesus’ love for the Father and for each of us. Jesus will show his love for the Father and us in his Passion, and that love will glorify the Father and will glorify Jesus as well. We are invited to participate in that infinite love shared by the Father and the Son because abiding by Jesus’ commandments displays our love for Him. Abiding by Jesus’ commandments makes us participants in the infinite love shared by the Father and the Son because: “The Father and I are one,” and “I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” Jesus is in the Father by virtue of the divinity he shares with the Father. We are in Jesus by virtue of the humanity he took from us in his human birth from the Blessed Virgin Mary. And Jesus is in us by virtue of the Sacraments of the church, particularly the Eucharist we share at every Mass.
Reference: Artwork ©LPi
