May 23, 2025 – Friday of the 5th week of Easter
Acts 15, 22-31; John 15, 12-17
Homily
The Gospel we just read is taken from chapter 15 of St. John’s Gospel and relates to us the words of Jesus to his disciples during the last meal that he took with them: “This is my commandment : love one another”. God is love. Therefore, the essence of our Christian life and of our monastic life is also love. And the essence of our community life is brotherly love.
We are not talking of a vague affective feeling : “Love one another as I have loved you, says Jesus. And he immediately explain the meaning of the words “as I have loved you”, when he says: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”, And it is after he has explained the demands of such a love that he repeats: “The commandment that I give you is that you should love one another”. Therefore, it is all about a brotherly love that expresses itself through each one renouncing one’s personal interests in order to work for the good of each one of one’s brothers or each one of one’s sisters.
Jesus insists saying : “ I do not call you my servants, but my friends”. By saying this, he shows the real meaning of friendship in a coenobitical community. We are not friends who have chosen the same vocation because we had the same taste. We are people, different from one another, whom God has called to form a community in order to incarnate in that community the mystery of his own love. It is His love for us that is the bond of our friendship.
The first reading of today’s Eucharist – which, like the reading of the Gospel, continues yesterday’s reading – is also full of lessons. It deals with the conclusion of the Council of Jerusalem, that met in order to fin a solution to a conflict that existed within the Early Church, including among those who were responsible for that Church.
The solution that was found implied a great respect for diverging sensibilities, especially between Christians converted from paganism and those who were converted from Judaism, along with the will not to impose to the ones or the others obligations that were not really necessary. The harmony of community life within a community like ours, requires such a respect. It is the only means to live in a healthy way the tensions that always manifest themselves in any normal community, just like within the first Christian communities of Jerusalem and Antioch.
It is what St. Benedict says very well, paraphrasing St. Paul, at the end of his beautiful chapter 72 of the Rule on the good zeal.
. They should bear each other’s weaknesses of both body and character with the utmost patience. They must compete with one another in obedience. No one should pursue what he judges advantageous to himself, but rather what benefits others. They must show selfless love to the brothers. Let them fear God out of love. They should love their abbot with sincere and humble charity. Let them prefer absolutely nothing to Christ, and may he lead us all together to everlasting life.