April 28, 2010
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Breaking Open the Word By James Cavanagh May 2 Fifth Sunday of Easter Scripture readings: • Acts 14:21-27 The Overview: This week’s first reading describes the conclusion of Paul’s first missionary journey, which started and ended in Antioch. Antioch (present day Antakya) is located near the coast in south-central Turkey. After the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7) and the persecution that followed forced Christians out of Jerusalem, Antioch, owing in part to its large Jewish population, became the principle center of the early Church. As Paul and Barnabas made their way back to Antioch they revisited the communities they had established on the first leg of their journey to encourage them in the face of many hardships. Luke, the author of Acts, points out how Paul had appointed elders (Greek: presbyteros, from which we get the word “priest”) in each church. When Paul returned to Antioch he reported all that God had done by “opening the door of faith to the Gentiles.” Echoing the first reading, the responsorial psalm praises the Lord “who is good to all and compassionate toward all his works.” The Bible ends with a vision of “a new heaven and a new earth” when the entire universe will be transformed and renewed. This process of transformation has already begun, in principle, through resurrection, which the pilgrim Church on earth anticipates in the liturgy. The “glorification” of Jesus in this week’s Gospel refers to his passion, death and resurrection, which must be understood as one seamless event through which he “makes all things new” by the total gift of himself. The reading ends with a new commandment: “Love one another; even as I have loved you.” Key verse: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). “Catechism of the Catholic Church”: “For the cosmos, Revelation affirms the profound common destiny of the material world and man: The visible universe, then, is itself destined to be transformed, ‘so that the world itself, restored to its original state, facing no further obstacles, should be at the service of the just,’ sharing their glorification in the risen Jesus Christ” (No. 1046-1047). Pope Benedict XVI: “The cosmic excursion in which Dante, in his ‘Divine Comedy,’ wishes to involve the reader, ends in front of the perennial Light that is God himself, before that Light which is at the same time ‘the love that moves the sun and the other stars’ (Par. XXXIII, v. 145). Light and love are one and the same. They are the primordial creative powers that move the universe. Today, the word ‘love’ is so spoiled, worn out and abused that one almost fears to pronounce it. And yet, it is a fundamental word, an expression of the primordial reality” (Speech, Jan. 23, 2006). Life application: The new commandment to “love one another as Christ has loved us” is not only a commandment but a gift of the risen and glorified Christ to his Church, which we receive in the Eucharist. The “love of Christ which has been poured into hearts” (Rom 5:5) encompasses and transforms not only us, but the entire cosmos. It is the “love that moves the sun and other stars."
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