“By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples” (John 15: 8)

Many of the movies that come out these days are based upon sequels of previous movies. Throughout the fifty days of the Easter Season, the Church has been focusing attention on one of the greatest sequels in human history—The Acts of the Apostles. The Acts of the Apostles is the second part of the two-part series known as Luke-Acts. The first part of this series is the Gospel of Luke. In his Gospel, Luke, like the other three evangelists, presents the life of Christ and speaks of the way in which Christ revealed God’s love and salvation for all people who place their faith in Him. In the Gospels, we see how Jesus made God present to humanity, saved them and touched them through His divine person.

In the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, The Acts of the Apostles speaks to us about the way in which Jesus and the Father sent the Holy Spirit upon the Church so that Christ could continue to be encountered in the Church and the Seven Sacraments. As we hear, The Acts of the Apostles proclaimed throughout the Easter Season, we are told how the Holy Spirit was sent upon all of the disciples, both Jews and Gentiles, so that Christ might continue to work His saving deeds through His living body, the Church. Much of the focus in the readings in this Easter Season has been on recounting how Christ continues to make His saving deeds present in the world through the Church, its members and Christ’s Seven Sacraments.

One of the most profound words, which expresses how closely Jesus wishes to dwell within the members of His Church is the word “abide.” This word, which we hear used today in the Gospel of John, speaks to us of Jesus’ desire to actually live within each one of His disciples through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ wishes that we should love Him enough that we allow Him to live within us and model our lives upon His love for us. It is impossible for Christ to live within us if we do not live as people of love. Our own hearts must be places of love if He is going to dwell there. If our hearts are filled with lust, hatred or envy, He will be unable to co-habitate there with these incomparable realities. We must make our hearts places of love for Christ to dwell there. We open our hearts to His presence by forgiving those who have trespassed against us and by keeping His commandments. His commandments are very easy, when we allow Jesus to assist us by abiding with us through the power of the Holy Spirit. These commandments may be expressed by the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament or by the two great commandments which Jesus has given us: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbour as yourself.”

As John tells us today in the second reading from the First Letter of John, the reason that we are to love one another is that God has loved us first. When a Christian understands all that God has done for us by saving us through His Son Jesus, the only proper way to respond is by loving his or her neighbour. As Pope Benedict XVI has stated so beautifully in his encyclical letter “Deus Caritas Est” (“God is Love”), it is God’s love for us which ultimately motivates our charity and love for others.

The easiest way to understand what today’s readings are all about is the beautiful Sacrament of the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, Jesus gives us His Body and Blood so that He might “abide” (dwell) within us. As He gives us His Body and Blood, He shows us how much He loves each of us. In His sacrifice on the altar, Christ lays down His life for us to show us that we are His beloved and intimate friends. In the Sacrament of the Eucharist, we receiver His Holy Spirit and are built up by His grace to continue His saving work in the world. As He comes to abide in us, Christ calls us to love one another in love and charity. The Eucharist is the perfect expression of God’s love and charity, and when we receive it, we are called to become a people of love and charity. As we receive Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist, He abides in us, so that we might love others as He has loved us first. The Eucharist calls us to continue Christ’s work in the world, to make Him present as did those who received the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles. When we receive the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Christ and His perfect charity, Jesus calls us to make our lives a sequel to the perfect charity which He has shown us.

This weekend, a number of boys and girls from our community will be receive their First Communion. As they do so, they will become the most recent sequels in the story of the Church that we hear told in the Acts of the Apostles. From generation to generation, Christ gives us His Body and Blood, so that each one of us may do our part to make Him present in the world today. The story and history of the whole Church revolves around the Eucharist and the call that Christ addresses through each of us to continue His story of love as we receive Him in this Sacrament and are sent to make Him present in new ways in the world today. As these young boys and girls make their First Communion today they become the next sequel in the history of the Church. They remind all of us that we have also been called to make Christ present in the world today and experience His love for us in the Eucharist. What Jesus and the Apostles began in Luke-Acts, we are called to continue in the world today, based on His example of love and abiding presence in our hearts. Let us pray that as these young people receive their First Communion today, they may remind us of our responsibility to understand the gift that we receive in the Eucharist and that we may do our part in telling the next chapter of this wonderful story of God’s love for us and our brothers and sisters.

May God bless our young people making their First Communion and always allow the love of His Son to abide in their hearts and ours.

Fr. Michael McGourty
Pastor, St. Peter’s Church—Toronto, Ontario

This reflection is based on the readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter—Year B: Acts 9: 26-31; Psalm 22; 1 John 3:18-24; and John 15:1-8.