Homily for 5th Sunday of Easter

JMJ Homily for 5th Sunday of Easter AMDG
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
Mary, Queen of Vocations, pray for us!

As Easter moves on, we graduate. In this KU graduation week, when another crop of thousands will break the threshhold of the campanile tower and walk down the hill, only to peel off and go on to parties instead of enduring another homily from a distinguished speaker, we too graduate through the Easter season. Last week we were sheep following the good shepherd. Good advice, to follow Jesus, rather than being foolish enough to try to follow ourselves. But of course, a bit unflattering. Considering ourselves to be sheep. This week we graduate. We are the branches. Granted, branches are not actually more intelligent than sheep, but at least they don't suffer from the reputation of being dirty and unintelligent. Branches are beautiful. Everybody likes branches. So we graduate this week. From sheep to branches.

Eventually, as we know well from celebrating the Easter season in past years, we will continue to graduate through Easter all the way to being chosen by Jesus to be His witnesses. We graduate all the way from being sheep followers to those Christ has chosen to remind the world of everything that He did and said. At Pentecost, the culmination of the Easter season, Jesus' disciples receive the Holy Spirit in all its fullness, as each one of us did at our Confirmation, and with these gifts of the Spirit comes the great commission that all of us receive, to go out and to baptize all the nations, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and to remind them of everything that Jesus did and said. And to remember, that Jesus is with us always, until the end of the world.

In Easter we graduate from those chosen to be disciples - sheep who follow the voice of the Good Shepherd, to those chosen by the Shepherd to be His apostles, those sent by Him to do greater works than He Himself did, by the power of His Spirit dwelling within us. This is what we celebrate during graduation season - we come to KU to learn, to be led, and we leave being sent out to do new things that have never been done before, armed with the knowledge and the gifts never before seen in history. Between these two extremes - being followers on one end and being evangelists on the other end, comes today's Gospel reminding us that we are to remain in Christ, as a branch remains with a vine. Whether we are following Christ, or being sent by Him, we are to remain in Him all the same. For He is the true vine, and we are the branches. No disciple is greater than His Master. A branch cannot bear fruit apart from the vine. But it is true that if that branch remains on the vine, that branch can go where the vine has not gone before. That is why Jesus tells us His disciples that as we graduate through the Easter season, we will do greater works than He did, and whatever we ask the Father, He will give us. Yes indeed, we are graduating quickly. Being a branch is different than being a sheep.

We begin by remembering that we will always be followers of Jesus. Apart from Him, we can do nothing, for without Him nothing would ever have come to be, for He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the one through whom and for whom all things were made. Without him we can do nothing.

We will always remain disciples, but as branches on the vine, we are also called to be apostles. Remaining in Christ gives us confidence that are not desperate - remaining in Christ reminds us that we have already received from Christ more than we could ever ask for or imagine. We begin with faith in Jesus' words that everything has been handed over to Him by His Father. Jesus has confidence that His Father will never withhold from Him anything that is good. Through faith in the one who died for us while we were yet sinners, we share in this confidence that through Christ we have received everything, in fact more than we could ever hope for or imagine. For eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned upon man, what God has prepared for those who love Him. Focused solidly not on what we lack, but what has already been accomplished in us, we celebrate with great joy during Easter our new dignity as God's adopted children. As God's children, we proclaim with confidence that because we are in Christ, through the grace of baptism, it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives within us. We remain in Him and He remains in us, and so we can say exactly what Christ says to His Father - that Father, you have handed over everything to us. And whatever we ask from the Father, He will give us.

With this great confidence and hope and joy, we graduate through the Easter season. We graduate from being sheep to being branches, from discipleship to apostleship. Because we are in Christ, both when we follow and when we are sent, we know we are able to bear abundant fruit that will remain, fruit that has never been produced before nor will ever be produced again. On this Mother's Day, we give thanks to almighty God for our mothers, for their vocation to love without counting the cost, and for the special work that God accomplishes through their generosity in bringing new children destined for eternal life into the world. Talk about bearing fruit that has never been produced before, nor will ever be produced again! Our mothers co-create with God in bringing about a new person who is made in the image and likeness of God, a new person with a destiny to live forever! May God bless all our Mothers abundantly on this day, and may He keep the vocation of motherhood special and strong in the future, protected by His mercy and grace, through the intercession of the Mother of God who does not have a Father, Mary most holy. +m