6th Sunday of Easter – Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48; 1 John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17
When Peter preaches the Good News, the Holy Spirit comes and descends on those who hear it. This image from the Acts of the Apostles shows how the good done by a man, piety, and ordinary action in God’s service (after all, the apostle simply did what he was called to do) result in God’s gift to everyone around him.
When Jesus calls us friends, it is as if he was saying to the whole wounded world: I am not sending you slaves, but people close to me, I am sending liberated people – just as you, living in this world, can become.
This outpouring of benefits, this hope that cannot be contained, kept only to ourselves, this blessing that exceeds anything that we as Christians could do or say – isn’t this what we can give to the whole world today? To give because we are who we are.