The Lord gives us two mandates in these readings today. Mandate may seem like a dirty word in our day
and age. However, when we look at the
mandates of Christ, we see they give us true freedom, peace, and eternal life.
In our first reading from Acts of the Apostles, doctrinal
and disciplinary questions came up in the early Church. Paul and Barnabas go to the Apostles and
elders for clarification. Jesus set up
His Church the way He did with her hierarchical structure to do just that. He knew questions would arise, and it would
take a Church with structure and authority to clarify things. It happened then, and it happens now. When questions come up, we can go to our
bishop who is a successor of the Apostles in union with the successor of St.
Peter, the Holy Father.
The reading tells us the Apostles and elders chose
representatives and sent them. It happened
then, and it happens now. Later this
month, two men will be ordained priests for the Archdiocese. The bishop will choose them, and send them to
their places of ministry with full confidence that they will teach the
authentic Faith they learned under his guidance at the seminary.
In the reading, the Apostles sent out a letter that read: “Some
of our number, who went out without any mandate from us, have upset you.” There’s
the first mandate of the Lord, that of being sent. It happened then, and it happens now. There is no shortage of people, who may have the
best of intentions, who come up with their own interpretation of the teachings
of Christ. Note that the reading says:
Some of our number – not some crazy outsider trying to destroy us. These were baptized Christian believers. This still happens today. Baptized Christian believers, who are of our
number but separated nonetheless, do this all the time. That’s why there are over 30,000 Christian
denominations in our country alone. Christ
started one Church, not 30,000. Next
Sunday, in this diocese, we won’t hear the readings from the 7th
Sunday of Easter because the Ascension of the Lord is transferred to Sunday. One of the things we won’t hear is Jesus’
prayer to the Father that we may be one as he and the Father are one.
In our reading today, we also notice the letter the apostles
sent said they went out without any mandate from us. Yes, we need a mandate to teach in the name
of the Church. At the ordination of
every new bishop, there is a document read from the Holy Father called the
mandate. However, there have been times
when bishops have gone out on their own and ordained new bishops without the
mandate. This creates a schism in the
Church. This harms her unity.
Then in the Gospel, we get the second mandate of the Lord, He gives us the mandate to keep His
commandments and love him. It is by way
of this Church that we are able to hear the words of Christ that he promises us
in the Gospel. He says: “Whoever loves
me will keep my word.” How can we know
what his word is unless someone tells us?
What is the mandate of love to which Christ calls us? We are to let go of the false center of
ourselves. We are to be more self-giving. We are called to be life-giving in our
relationships with God and each other. The
sign of our love is obedience to Jesus’ word.
Jesus talks about sending the Holy Spirit and then returning himself. We know that he returned to some of his
disciples briefly after his death when he appeared to them after his
resurrection. Then he would be with us
in the Holy Eucharist that we celebrate today.
He is made present here for us. Finally
he will be made present to us at the end of time. But before that happens, it’s our job to participate
with the grace that we receive from this Holy Eucharist. We respond by following the mandate of the
Lord. We go out to the world and make
Him present to each other through the loving acts we accomplish. Jesus offers us his peace in this Gospel
reading. It is only in his name that the
true peace he offered his disciples 2000 years ago can be present to us.
The world desires peace and talks about it constantly. However, without the love of Christ, we cannot
achieve peace on our own. The world will
continue to undermine and destroy its own efforts toward peace. It can only happen through Christ. Peace comes about through acceptance of
truth. Only in truth can we acknowledge
our brokenness and accept Christ into our lives. A peacemaker is one who declares the truth of
God and the truth of his creation. A
peacemaker announces to a fallen world that it can be remade.
The worldly way doesn’t seem to work so well. Let’s be the ones who trust in the Lord that
his mandates of love and obedience will bring the true peace we seek. We are called to be like those Apostles in
the first reading who dedicated their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Only then will our names be
inscribed in the New Heavenly Jerusalem.
