Sunday Reading Reflections:

Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B
Sunday, May 17, 2009

Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48

The Spirit of God is poured out on all of God's people, a lesson that some of the earliest Christians were slow to learn and that some of us can be reluctant to accept.

While Acts 9:15 has shown Saul being commissioned to carry the 'name' of Jesus to the Gentiles as well as to the people of Israel, in the Cornelius story Luke wants to affirm the primacy of Peter in accomplishing this mission.

The story is set in Caesarea, a port city in northern Samaria, established by Herod the Great in honour of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It represents the final step in the progression of the gospel from Jerusalem to Judaea and Samaria (Acts 1:8), or more specifically to a Gentile and his family living in clearly defined Gentile space within Samaria.

Just as the Holy Spirit comes upon the Jerusalem community at Pentecost, so now the Spirit is 'poured out' on the Gentiles. Peter comes to realise that God 'shows no partiality'. Therein lies the challenge.


John 15:9-17

It is not easy to love unconditionally and without reserve. We see such love in organisations like Medicins Sans Frontieres and in the lives of those who volunteer their services in times of crisis, often at great personal expense. The growing unemployment here, as elsewhere, is spawning an extraordinary upsurge in volunteering activity.

In this Sunday's gospel, the Johannine Jesus talks to his disciples of the flow-on effect of love that is boundless and unconditional (agape). God, imaged in the gospel passage as 'the Father', loves Jesus.

Jesus remains or abides in that love so deeply that it flows on to his friends. They are to love one another as Jesus has loved them.

That means living for each other and putting their lives on the line for one another. It means being faithful to the teaching of Jesus as he has been faithful to God's 'commandments'. Remaining in the love of God or of Jesus and doing what God or Jesus commands seems to be one and the same thing.

In other words, love is not just an emotion: it is always expressed in action that is in tune with and for the sake of the other. The disciples need no further explanation. Jesus' whole life and his courage in the face of impending death have shown them what it means to 'love one another'.

by Sr.Veronica Lawson RSM (East Ballarat)