Separation and reunion

The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary recommend a pattern of dealing with the tragedy and turmoil which we encounter as we allow the consequence of our relationship with Jesus to move us along in our life journey. The missionary experience of Paul and Silas in Corinth is described in the passage from the Acts of the Apostles. Two events precede the evangelistic efforts of Paul in Corinth. Friar Jude Winkler reminds us that the philosophers of Athens had dismissed the teaching  of Paul about the Resurrection as something completely foreign to Stoic understanding of the world. The stumbling block of Jesus as God Incarnate who give Himself to death as a messiah ruling from a cross had brought enough disruption to the synagogues of Rome that Jews and Jewish Christians were expelled by the emperor. The Church in Corinth grows as some “God-fearers” and synagogue officials welcome the Good News proclaimed by Paul. The conflict of division over ideas is real and troublesome. In the Gospel from John, Jesus describes the weeping and mourning that we experience when the Beloved is away. Friar Jude notes that the obvious reference of Jesus to His Crucifixion in this text is extended, in this time of preparation for celebration of the Ascension, to the time between Jesus return to the Father and the reunion with Him in the Spirit. Tami Whitney and those of us who are separated from loved ones through death also understand that the time of weeping and mourning is a real consequence of our temporal existence. The realization of the Kingdom of God, today, is the message in the Gospel of John. When we allow the relationship with Jesus to reach full empowerment in our being so that we bring peace to conflict, healing to hurt, acceptance to rejection and forgiveness to offense our time of waiting for His return is shortened as we live in resonant harmony with His Love.