Dear Friends,
On Easter Sunday and for the first few weeks following, the Sunday readings focused on the event of the Resurrection and the early believers’ experience of the Risen and Glorified Jesus.
Beginning last week though, and for the weeks before the Ascension, the focus changes to the impact of Easter on shaping the early Church.
Christ entrusted to His followers the work He began. We see this in the story of the early church in the Acts of the Apostles and in the letters of the New Testament.
That work is summed up in today’s Gospel, where Jesus gives His disciples one comprehensive, all-encompassing charge:
Love one another as I have loved you.
It takes a person a lifetime to sample, deepen, develop, and do what Jesus calls us to do in living out the one indispensable aspect of discipleship.
We are on our way.
Sometimes analogies help us grasp what the Risen Jesus has entrusted to us. (I found this somewhere but give it to you without quoting the unknown reference.)
Giacomo Puccini, the great composer, wrote the memorable Madame Butterfly, Tosca and La Boheme. In 1922, Puccini was diagnosed with cancer. Undaunted, he announced: “I want to write one more opera.” So he began to write Turandot. “But what if you die?”, his students asked him. "Then my students will finish it." In 1924, Puccini died, Turandot was unfinished and his student took up the task.
Turandot’s premier performance was in Milan’s La Scala Opera House under the direction of Puccini’s best student, Arturo Toscanini. The gala performance went on until it came to the point where the composer laid down his pen. Tears streaming down his face, Toscanini put down his baton and turned to the audience. “Thus far the master wrote, and then he died.”
Toscanini picked up his baton again. His tear-stained face was wreathed in smiles. Toscanini shouted to the audience "But his disciples finished the music!” And they had.
That’s love and dedication – generous and willing to pick up the unfinished work of the master – and for us, disciples of the Risen Lord, we continue the unfinished work of Christ.
~ Sister Joan Sobala
