Sunday, May 25, 2025

6rd Easter Sunday – Year C

Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

1st reading: Acts 15,1-2.22-29

Psaume : 66 (67),2-3,5,7-8

2rd reading: Revelation 21,10-14.22-23

Gospel: John 14,23-29

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“The city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light; its light is the Lamb.”

This city, which is the heavenly Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, is one of the figures of the Church. The true light that is in the Church, the People of God, the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Spirit, is the Lamb, it is Christ Jesus. He himself says it in the Gospel of Saint John: “I am the light of the world » (Jn 8,12:XNUMX). But the Lord shares this light with us since in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, it is to his disciples that he will say: “You are the light of the world” (Mt 5,14:XNUMX).

To the extent that Jesus becomes within us, to the extent that we live with Jesus, he becomes our light and with him we become a light. If we live the Gospel, we illuminate the world through Jesus, with him and in him.

I would like to focus on two points in this Gospel and let Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus enlighten us, help us to better understand how to let the Holy Spirit remind us of all that the Lord has told us, and how to welcome this peace that Jesus gives.

Thérèse doesn't talk about the Holy Spirit—or very little—she mentions it—she's Catholic, she believes in the Holy Trinity, no problem!—but she talks little about the Spirit. She talks a lot about Jesus, and on many occasions, through her Manuscripts or through her letters, we perceive how the Spirit that the Father sends in the name of Jesus teaches, how he reminds us of everything that Jesus said.

I have selected a few passages, but there are many more. I quote three passages from the Manuscripts, mainly from Manuscript C.

I always want to have charitable thoughts - Thérèse is talking about the difficulties of relationships that can exist between sisters in a Carmel - because Jesus said: Do not judge and you will not be judged. (Ms C 13v)

These words of Jesus become effective at the moment when Thérèse is tempted to judge this or that sister. The Holy Spirit makes these words come alive in Thérèse's heart.

Further:

No doubt, in Carmel one does not encounter enemies, but finally there are sympathies, one feels drawn to such a sister whereas another would make one make a long detour to avoid meeting her - very concrete temptations - thus without even knowing it, this sister becomes a subject of persecution. Well! Jesus tells me that this sister, one must love her - It is a current word: Jesus tells me today that this sister must be loved. This is what the Holy Spirit does in our hearts - that we must pray for her, even if her conduct leads me to believe that she does not love me: "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For sinners love those who love them." St. Luke, VI. (Ms C 15v)

And more towards the end of the Manuscript:

However, I did not want to miss such a beautiful opportunity to exercise charity, remembering that Jesus had said: Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you will have done it to me. (Ms C 29r)

But then we understand that for the Holy Spirit to be able to seek out in our memory such and such a word of the Lord to make it current here and now - I am experiencing something and my memory reminds me of such a word of Jesus, that is the work of the Holy Spirit: he will remind you of everything I have told you —for the Holy Spirit to be able to do this, there must be, in my memory, the Gospel. Hence the need to read it and reread it until I know it by heart, because if there is nothing in my memory, the Holy Spirit can go looking for something, but he will find nothing there… And he will not be able to make the word of the Lord alive and current. If the organist had only one pipe on his organ, he could only make that note. For him to be able to look for the different sounds and the different stops, there must be many pipes.

Thérèse has another formula that also tells us about the work of the Spirit. It is more subtle and we ask ourselves: but how does this work? In a letter to Marie Guérin, she tells her:

You have not done a shadow of evil, I know so well what these kinds of temptations are that I can assure you without fear, moreover Jesus tells me in the depths of my heart We must despise all these temptations, pay no attention to them. (LT 92 to Marie Guérin – May 30, 1889)

Something a little different, but it is the fruit of the spiritual experience that Thérèse has accumulated... There, in a situation like this, I understood something about how spiritual life works: Jesus made me feel that...

And if I return to Manuscript C, when she is going to explain or try to explain this darkness into which she enters at Easter in 1896, Thérèse says:

In the joyful days of Easter, Jesus made me feel that there are truly souls who do not have faith. (Ms C 5v)

This is how the Holy Spirit comes to us remember everything Jesus said and comes to make us interpret the events that we live. For this to happen, Jesus must be extremely present in our lives and the Holy Scriptures must be present in our memory. And they will not enter our memory without us voluntarily making them enter there…

The second point is that of peace. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, said Jesus. Not as the world gives I to you. Let not your heart be troubled nor afraid. »

Throughout her life, Thérèse succeeded in acquiring and welcoming the peace that Jesus gives. And even in moments of great suffering, in moments of darkness, Thérèse always said: but peace is there in the depths of the heart.

In August 1897, therefore shortly before his death, 2 months before his death, Mother Agnes said to him:

I asked: "What did you do to reach such unchangeable peace?"

Thérèse's response:

I forgot myself and tried not to seek myself in anything. (Yellow Notebook August 3, 1)

A few days later, Thérèse said:

I cannot rely on anything, on any of my works, to have confidence. […] One feels such great peace in being absolutely poor, in counting only on the good Lord. (Yellow Notebook August 6, 4)

A few months earlier, Thérèse had confided to Mother Agnes painful humiliations that had been inflicted on her by sisters at the Carmel. Thérèse told her:

The good Lord thus gives me all the means to remain very small; but that is what is necessary: ​​I am always content; I manage, even in the midst of the storm, in such a way as to keep myself at peace within. If I am told of fights against the sisters, I try not to become agitated in turn against this one or that one. It is necessary, for example, that while listening, I can look out of the window and enjoy inwardly the view of Heaven, of the trees… Do you understand? Just now, during my struggle about Sr. X. I watched with pleasure the beautiful magpies frolicking in the meadow, and I was as at peace as during prayer… I have fought well with… I am very tired! but I do not fear war. It is the will of the good Lord that I fight until death. Oh! my little Mother, pray for me!

This peace that Christ gives us requires work on our part to welcome it. We know well how easily our poor, sinful, and restless human hearts can become troubled, how easily we can let obsessive thoughts eat away at us from within.

What does Thérèse do? She goes looking for something else. She tries to escape what could eat her up inside by turning her eyes to the Lord, by turning her eyes to Heaven, and by using whatever she can see that can truly distract her. And she even calls this a struggle, and a tiring struggle.

Finally, the last thing that is not the easiest to understand about Thérèse is the coexistence between suffering and peace. In a letter during the novitiate that she wrote to her sister Céline, she said to her:

Let us suffer in peace…

I admit that this word peace seemed a bit strong to me, but the other day, while thinking about it, I found the secret of suffering in peace... Who says peace does not say joy, or at least felt joy... To suffer in peace, it is enough to want everything that Jesus wants... (LT 87 to Céline – April 4, 1889)

The peace that Saint Therese discovered is this union with Jesus.

And for Thérèse—and I know this shocks us in our twenty-first century mentality—ultimately, in everything we experience, we find what Jesus wants for us; and that through everything we experience, including trials, the Lord works to make us grow in holiness and therefore to make us grow in humanity.

This is where trust in Jesus matters so much. You may know that the last two words of Thérèse's last manuscript, Manuscript C, are precisely: Trust and Love.

It is through total trust and total abandonment to Jesus, by loving him more than anything, that we will know how to welcome the peace that he gives us.

Amen

Father Emmanuel Schwab, Rector of the Shrine