Sixth Sunday of Easter/B
Massimo Palombella
In today’s Gospel (Jn 15:9-17) the word ‘love’ is recurrent.
In our relationship with God there are those fundamental and ancestral instances of our existence that only allow that relationship to be real. Indeed, being loved and loving represent the heart of our life, that which we cannot do without, that which we seek with all our might, that for which we are willing to lose everything, that which truly makes our life worth living. And we become capable of loving because we have been loved gratuitously, without somehow ‘deserving’ that love.
When Jesus says in today’s Gospel ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you’, he is referring precisely to that love that preceded us, enveloped us and led us in an absolutely gratuitous and disinterested way, before any merit of our own. And, paradoxically, we have come and are coming into living contact with the Lord’s love, through that which in our lives has represented pain, suffering, ‘lack’, and which has required – and perhaps still requires today – our best energies.
The Lord has chosen us, loved us so that our life may be full, so that we may ‘bear fruit’ and live ‘life in abundance’ today with a subtle and silent aftertaste of eternity.
The Communion antiphon for today’s celebration is taken from chapter XV of John’s Gospel (Jn 15:16) with the following text:
“Ego vos elégi de mundo, ut eátis, et fructum afferátis:
et fructus vester máneat.”
(I have chosen you from the world, in order that you might go and bring forth fruit,
and that your fruit should last).
The attached music, in Gregorian Chant, is taken from the Gradual Triplex published in Solesmes in 1979. The interpretation is by the ‘Grupo De Musica Alfonso X El Sabio’ directed by Luis Lozano Virumbrales. The music track can be found on the CD ‘Codice Calixtino: Missa Sancti Jacobi’ published by Sony BMG Music Entertainment Espana in 1997.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
