Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL BIBLICAL IMAGERY

(Fr Michael Boakye Yeboah: Vice Rector of St Gregory Seminary, Kumasi-Ghana)

THE WILL

            A “Will” can also be referred to as a “Testament”. It is a legal means by which an owner of property disposes of his asserts in the event of his death. The term is also used for the written instrument in which the testator’s dispositions are expressed.

            Today’s Gospel, the last before Ascension, sounds like a last will and testament: these words are supposed to remain alive in the hearts of believers, permitting Jesus to address us inwardly in heart and conscience long after he no longer lives among us outwardly. These words of farewell are also an irrevocable promise, an assurance that includes, sealed within itself, a requirement.

            Jesus talks about his great love, love that rests in his death for his friends; but since we are his friends we must carry out his assignments. He promises them that his love will remain in them – a testamentary commitment – if they remain in his love, if they obey his commandment of love exactly as he has obeyed the Father’s commandment of love.

            His farewell promises are so overwhelmingly immense that they simply contain within themselves the demands they make of us. Has he not communicated to us the entire abyss of God’s love and chosen us to live within it? What could be more obvious than that we will be satisfied with this totality (for outside of it there is simply nothing)? This shared totality is something for which we can constantly ask the Father: if we remain in the Son, “then the Father will give you everything”. Gift and assignment are inseparable, indeed, the assignment is a pure gift of grace. With that the Gospel already anticipates Pentecost: the gift is God’s Spirit, who will work within us to help carry out the assignment, which is love.

            At times some see a “Will” in their name as something of merit but for God his “will” to us is a free gift: we did not do anything to merit it. The first reading shows that the grace of becoming and being a Christian is not dependent on any purely earthly, ecclesial tradition but is always a free gift from God, “who pays no attention to a person’s status” and “to whom anyone from any nation who fears him and does right is acceptable.” Here we have the story of the Gentile centurion and his household, who are given the Holy Spirit even before baptism. Represented by Peter, the Church then obeys God by recognizing this choice of God and by sacramentally receiving the chosen ones. The freedom of God even in regard to the institution expressly established by Christ as he departed, was brought home to Peter at the end of John’s Gospel: “If this is what I want…what does it matter to you? Follow me” (John 21:22). The Church dares not take upon herself the dimensions of the Kingdom of God, even though she must strive hard to evangelize and gather together all men, for whom Christ died and rose again. Certainly supernatural love can be present outside the Church (“if I want it so”), but it is precisely this love that drives the centurion Cornelius to become a member of the Church, in which, as the second reading shows, the triune God’s love is eternal.

            In the second reading one can feel and understand that everyone who loves is begotten by God. We are challenged to love each other because God is love. At the same time, we are reminded that we ought not think we know by our own resources what love is. Love can only be understood and defined by means of what God has done for us: he has given his Son as an atonement offering for our sins. Yet we dare not let the statement that we have no natural means of knowing what love is discourage us from loving each other, for love is revealed to us not merely for the sake of knowing it or talking about it or believing in it but for a real copying of love, a doing of love that is indeed possible: “Dear brothers, let us love one another, for love is of God.”