Opening Prayer Series: Collect for Sixth Sunday of Eastertide Year B

The Collect for the Sixth Sunday of Eastertide Year B reads as follows:

Let us pray,

Grant almighty God,

that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy,

which we keep in honour of the risen Lord,

that what we relive in remembrance,

we may also hold to in what we do,

Through our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son,

who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

In making this prayer tangible, the following reflection questions emerged:

1. Why should I celebrate Eastertide with heartfelt devotion?
2. Why should I ask God to grant me this gift?
3. How will I celebrate Eastertide with heartfelt devotion in my life this coming week?
4. What difference does the risen Lord make to my life?
5. How does the suffering, death and resurrection of the risen Lord show in what I do?
6. How has my spiritual growth been nurtured during Eastertide and what changes and preparations do I need to make as I move forward into the ordinary time of the year.
7. How will I start to prepare for the Year of Grace this coming week?

 In today's Gospel, we are challenged to love one another by Jesus. However, it is not to be a love that is mere talk, rather one that challenges us to lay down our life.  We are to be friends of Jesus if we follow His commandments, and in doing so, by clothing them in love, we will go out and bear much fruit.

So let us get down the nitty gritty- how can we lay down our life and how do we keep the commandments and clothe them in love?  We do this in the circumstance in which we find ourselves by followiing our vocation.  For the mother, it is to nurture her husband and family.  She may not feel like vacuming, cooking or providing practical love to her family every minute of every day. No, but mothers usually do despite the way they feel. They are giving selflessly and are laying down their life for those whom they love.  The husband and father also lays down his life for his wife and family by providing for them. He may not feel like getting out of bed, setting out to work, putting up with colleagues who he has no personal affinity. However, everytime he helps out a collegue, works as part of the team, goes without something he would like to buy for himself and uses that money for the good of his wife and family, he lays down his life and shows selfless love.

It is not only the married that this gospel is written for.  The single person has responsibilities just as much as the married person, albeit at times different ones.  How often is a single person the carer for his/her aged parents, extended family member or parishioner?  How often does a single person contribute in love to his/her family, workplace and parish life?

The priest or religious lives out this gospel countless times a day by attending to the sick, celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, visiting parishioners who are 'shut-ins'' and giving a kind word and by listening to a parishioner who is grieving or in distress of some kind or other.  Again, the priest or religious may feel like being or perhaps need to be in a million one or other places, but the more they give in love selflessly, the more they lay down their lives.

So whatever your vocation, single, married, religious sister or priest, the call to lay down our life is there. We can only do it on a daily basis if we obey the commandments and do it out of love.  As Jesus tells us that He chose us and we are to bear much fruit- fruit that will last.

How will you obey the commandment to love and to lay your life down during this week?