Fifth Sunday of Easter

Fifth Sunday of Easter
Most Rev. Bishop Mark Bartosic
Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago, Episcopal Vicar of Vicariate II

Remain in me, as I remain in you. 

The objective of Genesis 1 & 2 is to propose the human person as the absolute masterpiece of God's creative genius. It was no stretch for the ancients to conclude that if this is so, then man must be at the center of God's affectionate gaze.   

​Even scientists thought Galileo was crazy when he espoused the Copernican view that Earth is not at the center of the celestial dance going on over our heads. The Church reacted violently, but I don't think science had much to do with that reaction. The Church reacted out of fear for us. Most of us were still illiterate: would we forget who we are once we could no longer picture ourselves at the physical center of it all?  Would we become disoriented in a larger, more complex universe? Would God still be able to find us, lost in space? 

The tempter in Genesis 3 suggested to our first parents that their situation in paradise was intolerable. You actually trust that guy? Adam and Eve decided to take matters into their own hands: they sinned, and subsequently hid from God, who had to ask, Where are you?    

How will God find us, once we have moved? He'll do this: he'll send his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh - something we recognize, something that resonates. From then on, we'll call God's only Son, Brother. That the vine and its branches form a whole; that they are essentially one thing, is the point of today's Gospel. The only-begotten Son of God can come no closer to us than he already has, in the Incarnation: in subjecting his own flesh to our death, for his brothers' sake. 

It's because we believe in Christ's oneness with us that we can call ourselves children of God, and be telling the truth. For we believe that God has only one Son: we profess that every Sunday. And yet, though Jesus, with Jesus, and in Jesus, we too can claim divine filiation. That means that when the Father gazes at his Beloved (which he eternally does), he sees us.