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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Sixth Sunday of Easter
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Gospel text (Jn 15:9-17): Jesus said to his disciples: "Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete... I appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.."

John 15: perseverance (fruit and love belong together)

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, "fruit" and "love" belong together: the true fruit is the love that has passed through the Cross, through God’s purifications. "Remaining" is an essential part of all this. John 15 mentions several times the word "remain". What the Church Fathers call "perseverantia" —patience steadfastness in communion with the Lord amid all the vicissitudes of life— is placed center stage here.

Initial enthusiasm is easy. Afterward, though, it is time to stand firm, even along the monotonous desert paths that we are called upon to traverse in this life. If the fruit we are to bear is love, its prerequisite is this "remaining", which is profoundly connected with the kind of faith that holds on to the Lord and does not let go.

—Prayer is an essential element of this "remaining: those who pray are promised they will be heard. Praying in the name of Jesus is not to make an ordinary petition, but to ask for the essential gift that, in His farewell discourses, Jesus characterizes as "joy".