Every January, our Bishop, Bishop Higi, travels to Florida for a few weeks to visit his family. This is a good thing. Bishops are very busy people, and even bishops need to take a break now and then. And generally speaking, January is a good time of the year for a bishop to be gone. Christmas is over. Lent hasn’t begun. And most of the time, here in Indiana , it’s too cold for any real crisis to come up. But before he leaves, Bishop Higi sends a whole packet of information out to all the priests of the Diocese with instructions for not only how things are to be handled while he is gone, but really instructions and directions for the entire year. It’s kinda cool really. It always reminds me of Mission Impossible: “Your Mission , should you choose to accept it…” Except our packets don’t self-destruct after we read them. I’ve always thought that January would be the perfect time to play a joke on the Bishop while he was gone. For example, we could send him a check for a couple of thousand dollars and tell him that we decided to sell the place. That would go over well. Or we could write him a letter and tell him that we all decided to join the “church” of scientology. That would probably get a quick response. Or maybe we could just send him some bright purple paint and carpet samples, and tell him that this is what we have chosen for the colors inside our new church. Do you think I’d get a phone call then? Any one of these could probably get me re-assigned and quick. Sometimes it’s just better not to joke around.

There are lots of times like this. When your parents are gone for the weekend. When your boss is away on a business trip. When your teacher is sick and you know that you are going to have a “sub” for an extended period of time. When the normal authority and source of order is gone, we’ve got to make do. Things can collapse into chaos. Or we can stay focused. We can work together, stay on track, and keep going. Somebody has to carry on. Somebody has to know what to do.

In our Gospel today, Jesus is preparing His followers for His departure. He is leaving. His time with them had once again come to an end. He had done, and said, and taught everything that He needed to. And now He gives His followers a New Commandment, their new task that they are to stay busy doing until He returns. He says that they are to “love one another as He has loved them.” This sounds so simple. It sounds easy enough, especially when it’s contrasted with the elaborate and detailed Jewish law. But as you and I know, there’s nothing simple about this new Commandment. As a Church, we’ve been trying to do this now for two thousand years. And sometimes we have been very good at it. And sometimes we have been very bad at it. And it can only truly be done with God’s help and grace.

For you see, we’re not talking about just any love here. Jesus is very intentionally saying, “as I have loved you” because that makes this sacrificial love, the truest kind of love that there is. It means that we are to love and to care even when we are angry, when we do not want to share, when we are jealous, and even when we have been hurt. In these days of inflation and rising prices, it is easy to be driven to selfishness, holding on to all that we have and grabbing all that we can for ourselves. What we have to realize is that our greed and unconcern for each other are exactly the reasons why we are in the shape that we are in. We are to love without limits. We are called to voluntarily love those who are hardest to love. And how do we do that? It’s easy to love those we like and who are like us. How do we love those who are different? How do we love those who live different lifestyles? How do we love those who subscribe to different philosophies? How do we love those who lie, or steal, or kill? This new commandment is very hard. And yet, it is what we are supposed to be doing while we await His return. He wanted us to stay busy “loving one another”. Are we?

You know, it’s supposed to be the way that we know one another as Christians. Not by our crosses, not by our T-shirts, not by our W.W.J.D. bracelets, and not by our license plates: By our love they will know that we are Christians. How many people can tell that you are a Christian by your love? One? Five? Twenty-five? It’s a sobering thought. Let us do what Jesus asked us to do while we are waiting for His return: let us love one another as He loved us. That kind of love can change the world. It already has. That kind of love wants to change our world, if only we would let it.

We have a job to do while we are waiting. You know, the bishop expects things to be going smoothly and that his requests will be taken care of, when he returns at the end of January each year. Don’t you think Jesus expects the same when He returns? The new Commandment is not an option. It’s not a suggestion. It’s what we are supposed to be doing right now. With God’s help, let us love now. Tomorrow may be too late.

God bless us on this Fifth Sunday of Easter, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… AMEN!!!

St. Maria Goretti … Pray for us!!!