25 May 2025 - 6th Sunday of Easter "C"
Acts 15, 1-2.22-29; Rev. 21, 10-14.22-23; John 14, 23-29.
Homily
When we want to assure someone that we will really do something we have promised to do, we easily say: "I give you my word". On other occasions, however, we express the same idea with an apparently contradictory expression. We say "I'll keep my word". So, paradoxically, "to give my word" and "to keep my word" mean the same thing. In both cases, there is a commitment to do what we have promised to do. Our word has created a bond between us and the person to whom we have promised something.
Here we touch on the profound meaning of the word and its role in human relationships. The word establishes a communion between people. The true word is part of the person who speaks, and it continues to be part of that person even though it is received and assumed by the person who receives it, and is now also part of that person. The word is therefore both given and kept even as it is received. In contrast, a word that is not true remains separate from each of the two people involved and is a dead thing.
When I give my word, I give myself and a communion is established between me and the person to whom I give it.
God,‘ says Saint John, ’loved us so much that he gave us his Word. He gave it to us and kept it. He gave us His Son, His consubstantial Word, who dwelt in His bosom as He became ours. He came among us, became flesh and became our food of Life.
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The words of Jesus that we have just read were in fact His answer to a question from Jude: ‘How will You manifest Yourself to us and not to the world’. Jesus' answer was: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word; my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him”. So, just as Jesus is the Word of the Father, united to him in the Spirit of love, so too, if we receive his Word and keep it, we will be united to him and to his Father in the same way. Not only will a bond be established between him and us, but he will make his dwelling place with us.
The noun ‘dwelling’ and the verb ‘to abide’ are very important in John's Gospel. A dwelling is not simply a place where you stay while passing through, even for a fairly long time. A hotel room is not a ‘dwelling’; nor even the guest room in a friend's house. A “ dwelling” is the place where we live permanently. It's where we take root in time and space. For us monks, the monastery is our dwelling place. And it is interesting that the Greek word used by Saint John when he speaks of dwelling is monè. Now, in the Greek language of the first centuries as well as in modern Greek, monè is one of the words used to designate a monastery. So we could translate Jesus' words, with a little humour: ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep my word; my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make ourselves a monastery in his house...’.
This union of charity that unites us to God and therefore also unites us to one another is the way in which Jesus, at all times, manifests himself to the world -- through us.
May we always live among Christians, and within each of our Christian communities, in such a way that everyone can truly say: ‘See how they love one another’: in this way, Jesus will continue to manifest Himself to us and to the world.
Armand Veilleux