Fifth Sunday of Easter

God’s great desire is that we share in God’s life now and for all eternity.  That’s why we were created, as I learned from the Baltimore Catechism in first grade.  “Why did God make me?”  “God made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world, so as to be happy with him forever in the next.”

We celebrate and remember this during the 50 days of the Easter Season.  Jesus has conquered sin and death and has won us our salvation and gives us the gift of eternal life.  In today’s gospel, the Lord tells us disciples at the Last Supper that they are to trust him for he is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

We know from the Old Testament that no one can look on the face of God and live.  Yet, at the given time, God, desiring to be united with us, took on our humanity and entered into our world, sharing everything with us, except sin.  Now we know that when we look upon Jesus, we see the Father.  We have received the gift from the Father and Jesus, the Advocate, who is the Holy Spirit and has been poured into our hearts.  We don’t have to wait for this life to be over to share in the life of God.  We do so already.

Our life in Jesus, the Way that has been marked out for us, begins at our Baptism when we become a child of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus, and have our hearts filled with the love of God, as the Holy Spirit is poured into our hearts.  And we are strengthened with that same Spirit in Confirmation.  We receive Jesus, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist.  These three gifts are the Easter Sacraments, the Sacraments of Initiation, and having received them we are firmly rooted in the Way that we are to follow for the rest of our lives passing through death into eternal life.

The Way also offers us two Sacraments of Healing for when we are in need.  The Sacrament of Reconciliation restores us to grace when we sin and places us back on the Way after we have strayed in big or small ways.  God will always welcome us back and carry us forward with God’s mercy.  And when we are sick, God’s healing is given in the Sacrament of the Sick.

Likewise, there are two Sacraments of Vocation: Marriage for those who, reflecting the love of Christ for the Church, join their lives together in fidelity and love, and Holy Orders, for those men who serve the Church in imitation of Jesus, the Good Shepherd who through his ministers, continues to provide spiritual nourishment, service, teaching and guidance to his flock.

We do not follow Jesus only as individuals.  We are a community who gather for the Eucharist and then are sent out to serve the world and to preach the Gospel as we do so.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  We follow him faithfully as members of his Church, trusting him each day until we join him in the dwelling place he has prepared for us.  Alleluia!