Fifth Sunday of Easter – Year C

May 18, 2025

Gospel Lectionary Text

John 13:31-35
13:31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.

13:32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.

13:33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'

13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.

13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Context

Welcome to the Fifth week of Easter. This week’s text is situated between two betrayals. Judas has just left to complete his treachery, and Peter's denial waits in the wings. It’s here that Jesus speaks of a “new commandment” — to “love one another as I have loved you."

The content of the commandment isn’t new, but the source is. Jesus is referencing his own actions — the kind of love that washes feet and offers a meal to both the loyal and the traitor. When we love this way, we make resurrection visible, and it glorifies Jesus — revealing his true reputation, which is what the word “glory” actually means. Glory happens not despite betrayal but right through the heart of it. Jesus reveals God's very nature in his willingness to remain vulnerable, even to those who lynch and murder him.

Left to ourselves, we love selectively, conditionally, protectively. We love our own by excluding others. Jesus models something different — a love that keeps washing feet, keeps breaking bread, keeps opening the door even after betrayal and burial. This love doesn't depend on reciprocity or worthiness. It flows from abundance, not calculation.

Question

Who is it that you’ve stopped washing feet for, stopped breaking bread with, or closed the door on?

Reflections

Two Letters

How are we to live our everyday lives in light of the Risen one? What difference does it make? What changes? What is new? Two letters. That’s it. In all the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples, its my favorite. It’s a small word, but it is everything

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Seeing the New Jerusalem

The poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said, “That only which we have within, can we see without.” If we see hope, love and beauty “out there” it’s because we have those same gifts at play “in here.” If we see the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven it’s because it’s rising up in our souls. If…

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Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:

Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.

Poetry

Love Is Not Concerned
by Alice Walker

love is not concerned
with whom you pray
or where you slept
the night you ran away
from home
love is concerned
that the beating of your heart
should kill no one

Prayer

This week's call to prayer includes a story from our global community that helps ground us in the everyday reality of those we serve:

Gracious God, grant us the gift of undergoing your love and the love of each other, discovering ourselves liked by the One in whom there is no violence and who is in rivalry with nothing, not even death. May that love relax our need to be right and instead make us real.

We pray this in the name of the Father who is for us, the Son who is with us, and the Spirit who unites us all in the never-ending dance of Love.

Amen.

Listen to the complete call to prayer below: