“Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”

My friends in Christ,

As we come to yet another Sunday where we are unable to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass together in our Churches, let us try to make the most out of this time of pain and trial. In the readings today we are being called to prepare ourselves to proclaim the Truth of our Faith.

Saint Peter wrote his epistle to the Gentile Christians who were facing hardship and societal persecution. He exhorted them to “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” Our reason for hope is the fact that three days after Christ was put to death on the cross, he rose from the dead. Saint Peter reminds us of this fact. He was speaking to these early Christian communities not only as the head of the Church, but also as an eye-witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus. He encourages us by saying “it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.” We must constantly seek to know and do the will of God, even when that might not be easy; even when that might offend other people. Saint Peter knew this first hand, he was put to death for doing good that God willed him to do. He gave his life for the love of Christ.

In the Gospel, Jesus is speaking along the same lines when he says to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” The commandments that were given to us by the Lord are something given not in order to punish or limit us, but rather they were given out of love. For when we follow the commandments we are better able to give and receive not only the Love of God, but also the love of our neighbor. Christ goes on to say that “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” Now there is a lot to unpack in these 3 sentences. Christ will never abandon us, here is preparing the disciples for his ascension up to heaven. This also applies to us in our current situation in 2020. Even though our churches are closed and we cannot attend Mass and receive the Eucharist, Christ is still with us. He is still the head of the Church and while we may not like the current procedures and protocols in place we must not forget that this is Christ’s Church; the One True Church founded by Him. So while we may feel that the Church has abandoned us, we cannot abandon the Church for in doing so we would be turning our backs on Christ, who is always faithful to us.

So how are we to deal with feelings of frustration and disappointment that we cannot be in our churches right now? The answer is in what we have heard from Saints Peter and John in our readings today. We need to dig deeper in our knowledge of the Faith. We need to prepare ourselves to be better missionary disciples so that when this is all over we can go out into the world and help bring people back to Christ and his Church. Many people are hurting right now because they do not have Faith in their lives. We need to shine the light of Faith into their lives to show them the path to true happiness in Christ. In order to do this we do not need to enroll in an online Ph.D. program in Theology, there many easy things we can do right to help us deepen our lives of Faith. We can start by opening up the Catechism and reading up on what the Church teaches on any given topic. We can watch some of the great videos produced by groups such as Word on Fire, Sensus Fidelium, or the great courses called Aquinas 101 from the Thomistic Institute.

We can also read a spiritual classic such as the Confessions by Saint Augustine or The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. Finally, above all, we need to pray. Every day we should try to carve out at least 15 min to half an hour to read from scripture and pray the rosary. The more we deepen our relationship with Christ, the easier it will be to know His will for us and help others to do the same. For Christ says in the Gospel today: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”