Download audio file

Two-Minute Homily by Fr Lucius Edomobi for the Sixth Sunday of Easter 2024.
“When we become friends with Jesus, it changes the way we live. We begin to pray better, experience more peace, comfort, and joy in our lives, knowing that we are truly in love with Him.”

• Two-Minute Homily Transcript

  Two-Minute Homily Transcript

  Author: Archdiocese of Brisbane

  
  John’s gospel today presents us with two models of personal relationship to Jesus. Whether we see Jesus as a master or as a friend. But at any given point in our journey of faith one of these two models is dominant. Either we see our relationship to Jesus mainly in terms of master-servant or in terms of friend-friend. And for some people, Jesus is seen more as a master to be feared, respected, and obeyed than as a friend to love in intimacy and familiarity.

  But John in today’s gospel challenges us to re-examine our relationship with Jesus because, evidently, Jesus himself prefers to relate with his disciples as friend to friend rather than as master to servant. As he says, “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends”. And so, if Jesus has chosen to call his disciples friends, it means that he wants them to feel more loved and more secure and closer to him. And I think most of us can identify with this kind of familiarity and intimacy that exist in most families. Like the disciples, when we become friends with Jesus, it changes the way we live. We begin to pray better, to experience more peace, comfort, and joy in our lives, knowing that we are truly in love with Him.

  Needless to ask why then that the second reading begins with an exhortation to love. “Beloved, let us love one another”, it says. And John addresses his listeners as beloved because love already exists in that community. And so should it be amongst us because God is love. Therefore, this message is one that we all need to hear every day because Jesus is love, we are nothing without love. Let us ask Jesus our friend to increase our love for him and for one another, especially for those who feel unloved. Peace be with you.