Fifth Week in Easter Time, Thursday – 6th May 2021 — Gospel: Jn 15,9-11
Shared Experience of Joy
Earlier in the Last Supper discourses, Jesus gave the disciples his peace (Jn 14,27). In today’s reading, Jesus gifted them with His love and joy, so that their joy “might be complete.” Jesus found His own deep joy in communion with God His Father. He wanted His disciples to have that joy that comes from dependence upon Him. Man’s idea of joy is to be as happy as he can be by leaving God out of his life. However, Jesus taught that real joy comes by taking God into one’s life as much as possible. When we receive the love of God and remain in it by keeping God’s commandments to love him and others, we experience joy. This joy would be fulfilled in abiding in Christ. Certainly, our abiding in Christ ought to produce His love, joy, and peace in our hearts. Indeed, Love, Joy, and Peace are the first three “fruit of the Spirit” in Gal 5,22-23. Jesus completes our joy because He “is the goal of human history” and “the answer to all its yearnings.”
