Shout With Joy To God

Shout with Joy To God
A Reflection for the Fifth Sunday After Easter
by Rev. Robert Johnnene OFA, Mission Saints Sergius and Bacchus
www.missionstsergius.org
“Jubilate Deo, omnis terra, psalmum dicite Nomini ejus: date gloriam laudi ejus, Shout with joy to God, all the earth, sings a psalm to His Name: give glory to His praise. Declare it with the voice of joy! O God, from whom all good things come, grant unto us, Your suppliant people, that by Your inspiration, we may think what is right, and under Your guidance perform the same.” These opening words from the mass for the Fifth Sunday After Easter are a wonderful and strong prayer that we should pray every day of our life.
We have so many reasons to be thankful to Almighty God and to shout with joy for His infinite mercy and love for us. No matter how bad things might get for us, we have reasons to be thankful and to return God’s love with praise of His name.
The lesson for today is not only a reminder to be thankful to God and to be willing to proclaim loudly His praise, but as the Epistle of St. James reminds us, we need to not just mouth our praise but live it by our deed thereby showing all we are truly followers of Christ and believers in the teachings given us by Jesus which came from the Father Himself, Almighty God. “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man only hears the word and does not live it, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass: for he sees himself and goes his way, and presently forgot what he looks like. But he that has looked into the perfect law of liberty and has continued living it, not becoming a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work: this man shall be blessed in his deed. And if any man thinks himself to be religious, not guarding his tongue but deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is in vain. Religion clean and undefiled before God and Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation, and to keep one's self unspotted from this world” (James 1:22-27).
Two more messages of extreme importance for today are found in the Gospel reading from John 16:23-30 is for me the most inspiring and one of the greatest reasons for shouting with Joy to God. The message is simply Christ’s promises to us that “Amen, Amen, I say to you: if you ask the Father any thing in My Name, He will give it to you. Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.” And “the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God. This promise, if for no other reason, is cause enough to shout our praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God. A promise from Christ, that if we ask anything of the Father in Christ name, the Father will grant it. We do, however, have to remember the very last six words of that promise, “THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE FULL”. I feel very strongly that those last six words means that God will not grant us our wishes if they will eventually lead us to sorrow and possible sin. Which may explain why, even though we pray hard and believe and trust in God, that sometimes our prayers seem to not be answered. I also believe that all are prayers are indeed answered but they are answered in a way that God feels is best for us and not what we consider to be best. Our human frailty often leads us to seek things that, though they might give us temporary pleasure, could easily lead us away from God.
Everything, as I have often said, and today’s readings and prayers from the Mass reiterate, that God created and gives to us is Good, but we so often turn that good into something bad by misusing God’s gifts in a manner that was not God’s purpose. We need to approach all God’s gifts with respect for their purpose, and nurture, guard, protect and treat them with the same love with which God bestowed them upon us. Whether it is the environment, our sexuality, our talents or just our neighbors we need to treat them in the same way that Christ gave to us as an example and that will only bring honor, glory and praise to the Eternal Father who bestows them upon us.
I will close this week’s reflection with a prayer that is taken from the prayers from the Mass Secret and Post Communion prayers for the Fifth Sunday of Easter.
Bless the Lord our God, all you peoples, and make the voice of His praise to be heard: God, You set my soul to live, and have not suffered my feet to be moved. Blessed be the Lord, who has not turned away our prayer, or His mercy from us, alleluia, alleluia.
Grant to us, O Lord, that filled with strength from Your infinite mercy and love and the blessings you have bestowed upon us, we may both desire what is right, and obtain that which we desire and that We might live our lives in a manner that reflects the truth, teachings and example of Your beloved son, Jesus Christ. We ask this in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. AMEN