VI Easter Sunday (5.5.2024)

1. God wants our joy: this is the message that today's liturgy communicates to us on this 6th Sunday of Easter, scattered with constant reminders of divine love and joy. In the Gospel Jesus reassures the apostles in the cenacle after the Last Supper: 'I have told you these things that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full'. These are words that reveal God's heart and constitute extraordinary news for us too. Jesus talks to the disciples to console them knowing what trials await them and insists on revealing to them the secret of joy that defeats all forms of sadness. This same secret he communicates to us all in the long and final discourse that occupies well over three whole chapters of the fourth gospel. In the intimacy of the Last Supper, when the betrayer had already set in motion the dramatic project of delivering the Master into the hands of his enemies, Jesus, well aware of what awaits him, speaks to the disciples of joy, the heart of which lies in his own life, which is entirely love in the image of the Father: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you". Love is the fruit and the secret of joy! The gospel is perfectly in tune with the second reading: when humanity comes to know who God really is, it will discover the true meaning of love: "It was not we who loved God, but he who loved us".

2. The more one reads the Bible, the more one is struck by the insistence with which God wants to make himself known as a Father who gives us life and loves us to the point of sacrificing his only son for the redemption and salvation of all. In short, humanity's real problem lies in the fact that it does not know the true face of God, and is therefore too often misled by false images of Him, which are also presented by those who, although they claim to be Christians, have not yet entered into the view of this love that generates joy. God is often seen as an implacable judge ready to punish the guilty, as a being far away and perhaps not necessarily attentive to our daily vicissitudes, whereas the true face of God is that of a Father who rejoices in the joy of his children and nourishes it by being infinite mercy: his name is Mercy. In the Old Testament, the prophets spent their lives to reveal the authentic face of God filled with tenderness and mercy: we hear its echo in the psalms where the call to God as our joy, authentic joy, source of peace for those who welcome him, resounds as a recurring motif. Isaiah and Zephaniah sing of joy as they speak to oppressed and discouraged peoples and console them by assuring them of the presence of God who loves his people. Those whom the Lord has saved shall return,' Isaiah writes, 'they shall come from Zion with shouts of joy, and on their faces shall shine infinite joy, for joy and exultation shall come upon them, while sadness and weeping shall flee (cf. Is 35:10; 65:18-19). These late Old Testament texts show that revelation had already come a long way. A clear example of this is the prophet Zephaniah who insists on the love that is full of joy in seeing God his children happy: "Rejoice, daughter of Zion, shout for joy Israel, exult and acclaim with all your heart! The Lord has lifted your condemnation, he has scattered your enemy...you will no longer fear any misfortune.... The mighty saviour Lord is in you, and you need no longer fear misfortune and evil; he is the hero who brings salvation. He will have his joy in you and renew you with his love (cf. So 3:14-18). The real problem is that people find it hard to believe and accept this. There is too much insistence on the duty to love God whereas it would be more important to understand that it is God who loves us first and freely. Some might think that this is too good to be true, especially considering the many difficulties that mark life while the Lord we invoke seems silent, sometimes even absent and disinterested. From the word of God, however, comes an invitation to us not to grow weary of cultivating hope because faith makes us certain that in the end mankind will experience God's love and then we will live in joy. In the Old Testament, joy is always presented as a characteristic of the salvation that mankind awaits, as the prophet Joel assures us: in the end God will pour out his spirit upon every man and then all will know that God is love and we will be completely enveloped in his joy.

3. This joy, the joy of God who loves us, no one can steal it from us.If in the Old Testament joy is often a promise, the New Testament speaks of joy as a reality that accompanied the coming into the world of the One whose mission is to reveal the true face of God to humanity. At the birth of John the Baptist, the angel reassures Zechariah: "Do not be afraid" (Lk 1:13-14). At the Saviour's birth, the angel surprises the shepherds: "Fear not: behold, I bring you great joy, which shall be to all the people" (Lk 2:10). The gospels breathe of joy, especially John's, which constantly combines the invitation to joy with the sweet command of love: 'As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you'. Earlier Jesus had confided to the apostles: "You have heard that I have said to you: I am going and I will return to you. If you love me, you will rejoice that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I am" (Jn 14:28). And today he adds: "Abide in my love...This I command you: that you love one another". Thus is born the joy that suffering cannot destroy and that is nourished by the expectation of hope, especially in times of difficulty: 'If you are now in sorrow, do not be discouraged,' the Lord says to the apostles, 'for I will return and your heart will be filled with joy and your joy no one will be able to steal it from you. And in the long prayer that occupies the whole of chapter 17, immediately before he enters into his passion, he addresses the Father thus: 'But now I come to you and say this while I am in the world, that they may have the fullness of my joy in themselves' (Jn 17:13).

The apostles, in turn, will also speak and invite joy to men. St John insists on this in his letters: "I write this to you so that our joy may be complete" (1Jn 1:4)."I have other things to say to you, but I did not want to do it on paper and ink; I hope, however, to come to you and to speak with you so that our joy may be full" (2 John 1:13).It is perhaps by this that the true prophets and apostles of every age can be recognised: when they reveal to men the true face of God of joy. A face that each one of us will be able to contemplate at the moment of our final encounter with the Father when we hear Him say to us: "Well, good and faithful servant in a little, I will give you power over much; share in the joy of your master" (Mt 25:21). Happy Sunday

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

P.S. "This morning the Voice said to me: 'My son, I walk with my friends through the streets of the world, where they are shepherds of my flock. But they are sad, withdrawn into themselves. Sometimes they have forgotten their no longer being of the world and complain if the world does not recognise their actions. And because they make themselves similar to the world they end up forgetting Me, Who walk with them, and the world deceives them because it seeks only itself, crushed by deception, by the LIE of my beloved and distant Angel! And they, using the same means of the world, become prisoners of it and begin to think according to that mentality. And the Enemy enters the fold and scatters the flock. Sure, because the weapons of the world flatter you, they give you for a moment only fleeting joy, they fill you with goals and yours become the first, but then they collapse miserably looking at their emptiness that will never fill their heart! Your heart! How I love My friends to whom I have entrusted everything! Often they are closed in their hearts, as in their offices: bishops and priests write books, love to perfume the world, and are often far from the flock! And I walk with them, I call them, I knock at their heart. I need them. Warn them from me! Let them resume their journey, let them clothe themselves with Me, let them weary for Me, and their labour will be joy, though it may seem vain! But it is I who have worked with them. Let them be weary with Me, not weary of their failed experiences. This is of the World! In them I dispense to the World the joy of Mercy: let them go forth to meet the flock, let them soil their garments and I will wash them again when they return from their toil. Let them wash one another's feet again, wash the poor deceived by the Enemy and I will wash them again. Go, encourage them from Me. They are My friends. I will not leave them alone.

[From the Writings of the Spiritual Experience of the Shrine of Maccio]