That Your Joy May Be Full

From Vultus Christi:

On this Sunday before Ascension Thursday, we are again admitted into the Cenacle. There Our Lord is deep in conversation with His Apostles. He is opening their hearts and minds to what is and to what will come. He acts upon His own by the secret operations of His grace, and so renders them capable of receiving what He desires to give them, and of desiring what He gives. This is Our Lord’s way of acting with each of us. The man who tarries in the presence of Christ will find himself gently opened to the truth. He will be surprised by the light that shines within him and by the fire enkindled in his heart.

Origen passed on a saying attributed to Our Lord but found nowhere in the Scriptures: “The Saviour himself saith: He who is near me is near the fire; he who is far from me, is far from the kingdom” (Homil. in Jer., XX, 3). It seems to me that all through Paschaltide, in listening to the reading of the Discourse in the Cenacle, we are very near the fire. With us, it is, I think, as with the disciples who said one to the other: “Was not our heart burning within us, whilst he spoke in the way, and opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

What does Our Lord says to us today? He says, “The Father Himself loveth you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came out from God” (John 16:27). If ever you have looked for divine assurance, know that you find it in these words of Jesus: “The Father Himself loveth you”. Any preacher, it seems to me, would be fully justified in repeating only this, and saying nothing more. This is the word that every soul waits to hear, lives to hear. This is the word that, once heard, allows a man to live as Christ would have him live. “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

But there is more: Jesus tells us why the Father loves us. The Father loves us because we have loved Jesus, and believed that He came forth from God. Loved and believed: charity and faith. Even these are not the effect of some human industry or the result of human seeking, willing, thinking, and knowing. Charity and faith are themselves gifts of God, and, together with hope, they are the gifts by which God renders us capable of receiving His love. (Read more.)