By Fr. Simione Volavola, MSC (Pennsylvania Community – St. Joseph the Baptist – Ottsville, PA)
Father Simi professed his first vows on February 20, 1995 and was ordained on January 27, 2001. He is working in Ottsville, Pennsylvania as Pastor at St. John the Baptist Parish.
“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” (John 14:23)
Friends, on this, the Sixth Sunday of Easter, our minds are drawn more deeply into the newness that our Risen Lord brings to our reality, our existence. We, who experience the loss of separation are now being drawn into a forever presence where there is only peace.
This forever presence is described in today’s Sacred Scriptures as the forever gift to each other of the Father and the Son in total and utter love, a love so alive, so personal that it is a Person, the Holy Spirit.
They are never absent from each other but eternally united to one another and so there is never any sadness nor distress from loss but only the peace of eternal communion. This is the peace the world cannot give.
This is the new reality to which we are invited and drawn. By loving the Son who teaches us to remember Him and to receive Him in His self-emptying love of Good Friday, the event that is now forever perpetuated in the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, we too enter into the eternal love and peace of the Father and the Son.
Growing in our communion with the Holy Trinity through the sacraments, we find that we too are never really separated from each other. Peace grows. Sadness and distress dissipate.