Peggy Stanton’s Notes – 6th Sunday of Easter
JOHN 15: 9-17
Para 459… The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness. “take my yoke upon you, and learn from me” “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.“ On the mountain of the transfiguration, the Father commands: “ listen to him! Jesus is the model for the beatitudes, and the norm of the new law: “ love, one, another, as I have loved you.” This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example.
Para 1823… Jesus makes Charity the new commandment. By loving his own “to the end “, he makes manifest the Father‘s love, which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate, the love of Jesus, which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says:“ as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.“ and again: “This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.“
Para 1824… fruit of the spirit and fullness of the law, charity keeps the commandments of God and his Christ. “Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.“
Para 1970… the Law of the Gospel, requires us to make the decisive choice between the “two ways”, and to put into practice the words of the Lord. It is summed up in the Golden Rule, “whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; this is the law and the prophets.”
Para 1974… the evangelical counsels manifest the living fullness of charity, which is never satisfied with not giving more. They attest its vitality and call for our spiritual readiness. The perfection of the New Law consists essentially in the precepts of love of God and Neighbor. The counsels point out the more direct ways, the readier means, and are to be practiced in keeping with the vocation of each:
The Catechism quotes Saint Francis DeSales, who wrote: “God, does not want each person to keep all the counsels, but only those appropriate to the diversity of persons, times, opportunities and strengths, as Charity requires; for it is Charity, as queen of all virtues, all commandments, all counsels, and, in short, of all laws, and all Christian actions, that gives to all of them, their rank, order, time and value.”
Para 609… By embracing in his human heart the Father‘s love for men, Jesus loved them to the end for “greater love has no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” In suffering and death, his humanity became the free and perfect instrument of his divine love, which desires the salvation of men. Indeed, out of love for his Father, and for men, whom the Father wants to save. Jesus freely accepted his passion and death. “No one takes my life from
me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” Hence the sovereign freedom of God’ Son, as he went out to his death.
Para 614… The sacrifice of Christ is unique. It completes and surpasses all other sacrifices. First, it is a gift from God the Father, himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time, it is the offering of the Son of God made man who, in freedom and love, offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit, in reparation for our disobedience.
God has said everything in his Word
Para 65…In many and various ways, God spoke of old to our fathers, by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by a Son. Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father’s one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything. There will be no other Word than this one. St. John of the Cross among others commented strikingly on Hebrews 1: 1-2
In giving us his Son, his only Word (for he possesses no other), he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word, and he has no more to say… Because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is his Son. Any person questioning God, or desiring, some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behavior, but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely on Christ, and by living with the desire for some other novelty…..St. John of the Cross
There will be no further revelation.
Para 66…The Christian economy, therefore, since it is the new and definite Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, even if revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith, gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries.
Par 142… By his revelation, “the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company.” The adequate response to this invitation is faith.
Para 1972… The New Law is called a law of love, because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear; a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom, because it sets us free from the ritual and juridicial observances of the Old Law, inclines us to act spontaneously, by the prompting of Charity, and, finally lets us pass from the condition of a servant, “who does not know what his master is doing” to that of a friend of Christ – “for all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you” or even to the status of word son and heir.
Para 424… Moved by the grace of the Holy Spirit and drawn by the Father, we believe in Jesus and confess: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” On the rock of this faith, confessed by Saint Peter, Christ built his Church.
Para 2615… Even more, what the Father gives us when our prayer is united, with that of Jesus is “another Counselor, to be with you, forever, even the Spirit of truth.” This new dimension of prayer and of its circumstances is displayed throughout the farewell discourse. In the Holy Spirit, Christian prayer is, a communion of love with the
Father, not only through Christ, but also in him.“ Hitherto, you have asked nothing in my name,” Jesus said , “Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full.“
Para 2745… prayer, and Christian life are inseparable, for they concern the same love, and the same renunciation, proceeding from Love; the same filial and loving conformity with the Father‘s plan of love; the same transforming union in the Holy Spirit, who conforms us more and more to Christ Jesus; the same love for all men, the love with which Jesus has loved us: “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. This, I command you, to love one another.”
He prays without ceasing, who unites prayer to works and good works to prayer. Only in this way, can we consider as realizable the principle of praying without ceasing. – Origen
