Newsletter 5th Sunday of Easter (Year A) 3rd May 2026

Newsletter 5th Sunday of Easter (Year A) 3rd May, 2026.pdf

Download PDF • 657KB

GOSPEL REFLECTION

In today’s Gospel, Our Lord makes the remarkable statement “Where I Am, you maybe too.” Our Lord by saying: “I Am” is saying that He is God. “I Am” is the title for God. When Moses, on Mt Sinai asked God, “what name shall I call you?” God replied, “I Am who I Am, and you shall tell the sons of Israel that ‘I Am” sent you.”  Our Lord called Himself “I Am” at least 7 times in St John’s Gospel. For example: Before Abraham was born, “I Am.”  For saying that He was “I Am,” the Jews said Our Lord had blasphemed and the Jews began to stone Our Lord.  Other examples where Our Lord called himself “I Am” include: “I Am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never be hungry.” (John 6:35) “I Am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall … have the Light of the Life”.  (John 8:12).  “I Am the resurrection and the life.”  (John 11.25) “I Am” the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) Therefore, when Jesus says He is “I Am”, He is saying He is God.  And when, in today’s Gospel, Our Lord says: “Where I Am you may be too”, Our Lord is saying that we too are called to be “I Am”. We are not called to be divine, but God’s plan is for Himself to live or reign in us.  In other words, for each of us to be full of God, or full of the Holy Spirit.  “Where I Am you may be too.”  The ideal is Our Blessed Mother:  Our Mother, the Bible says is “Full of Grace” that is why, when she appeared to our St Bernadette in Lourdes in 1858, she called herself - “I am the Immaculate Conception.”  She didn’t say, “I was immaculately conceived”.  She called herself, “I am”.  How can a human call themselves “I am”, if “I Am” is God?  St Maximillian Kolbe, only a few hours before he was martyred in the starvation bunker at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in 1941, wrote a paper where he answers that question.  Our Blessed Mother was so united to God’s Will that every thought, word, an act of hers, was the same or identical to Our Lord’s.  Our Mother described herself to a mystic named Luisa Piccarreta in the 1930’s. “I was so identified with my Creator participating in all the joys, happiness and sanctity which He possessed, as much as I could partake of them.  One was the Will that animated us and whatever God wanted, I wanted.”  Bl Dina Belanger a woman in Canada, who died in 1929, spoke of Mystical Substitution:  She wrote: “We are no longer two, Jesus and I, we are one.  Jesus alone … It is He who thinks, acts, prays, looks, speaks, walks, writes, teaches, in a word, who lives, and I, buried in His Heart, am so little that He alone can see me.  I have surrendered all.”  Bl Dina Belanger described how she does God’s Will.  I committed myself, under pain of sin, to do constantly and in every circumstance, what was most perfect: in my thought, my desires.  I had promised not to entertain any useless thought not to allow myself willingly to make any useless physical movement. This vow, then affects every second, every moment of my life.  I know that my repeated lack of thoughtfulness of Jesus does not hurt Him, because it is involuntary, but how many times in the course of a day!”  Our Saviour said to Bl Dina, “My little bride, I want to lead you further into the depth of the Most Blessed Trinity. Come into the essence of the Heart of God, into the very essence of the Divinity.’  Our Lord loves us infinitely.  He proved that on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  There is no limit to what Our Lord’s love wants for us.  Therefore, He wants us to share in His Divine nature, as much as a human can.  We come to Mass, because we know that by receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion, we will receive all that God is.  That is why when the Priest says, “the Body of Christ” the full meaning is Our Lord saying to you “All I have and all I Am, I give to you.”  By receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion, we become One with Him. We become what we consume.  We become living Hosts.  2,000 years ago, God became incarnate in one man – Our Lord Jesus Christ.  God’s plan is that one day He would be incarnate in every person. As Our Lord said in today’s Gospel … “Where I Am, you may be too.”