Scripture reading reflection

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Scripture Reading Reflection
by Fr. Andrew Kelly
FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER – MAY 3, 2015
Lovers holding hands while looking each other straight in the eyes declare: “I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”
Christ in Sunday’s Gospel (John 15:1-8) declares to the believing community the same lover’s promise: “Abide in me as I abide in you.” Christ will live and become one within the community as lovers live and become one within each other.
Essential for mutual love to thrive, lovers and believers need to pay constant, conscious attention to each other’s souls. The relationship is fundamentally spiritual and invisible. For believers to skip the spiritual dimensions of their relationship with Christ would be as deadly as lovers skipping the spiritual dimensions of their relationship.
Lovers need prayerful spiritual disciplines if they are going to abide in each other. Believers need prayerful spiritual disciplines if Christ is going to abide within the believing community.
Lovers who are consciously, attentively, physically, emotionally and spiritually abiding within each other are modeling for the believing community what Christ means when Christ says: “Abide in me as I abide in you.”
(Father Andrew Kelly is a retired priest of the Diocese of Davenport.)


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