SUNDAY’S READINGS | May 20, 2022
Acts 16:9-15
Ps. 67
Rev. 21:10, 22-22:5
John 14:23-29 or 5:1-9
“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you — for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deut. 7:6-8).
We, who are the chosen witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, may speak in similar words. We are God’s chosen people, his treasured possession, his beloved children, who through the victory of Christ have been delivered from the house of slavery, that is, sin and death.
The Jewish people are an elect nation, the disciples of Christ an elect people, and all peoples of the earth are, in some sense, global partners in God’s universal call. As St. Peter says, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). Indeed, from a Christian perspective, all people and all creation are the raw material of a growing and living Church. This is not a matter of absorbing and dissolving differences into one dominant and domineering Church. Rather, all people with their varied gifts and all creation in its manifold and rich variety are the living stones from which the new creation is built up and enriched.
In Christ, God is calling and reaching out to every family, language, people, and nation. “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the people with equity and guide all the nations upon earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, has blessed us” (Ps. 67:3-6).
We can learn from heaven and recall that the Church is a foretaste of a heavenly home. In his great revelation, St. John says, “And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day — and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations” (Rev. 21:10, 22-26).
The kings of the nations and all people bring their splendor, gifts, and wealth into the holy city, not as payment for entrance but as an acknowledgment that every blessing comes from above. This diverse multitude of saints walks amid divine light, drinks from the water of life, eats from the tree of life and draws healing from its leaves. What is this vision but a return to Eden and an ideal vision of a truly catholic Church in all its staggering diversity?
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!
Look It Up: Isaiah 60:3
Think About It: Christ is the true light to which all nations are drawn.