“Seek to do good, and you will find that happiness will run after you.”

“Joy must be one of the pivots of our life. It is the token of a generous personality. Sometimes it is also a mantle that clothes a life of sacrifice and self-giving. A person who has this gift often reaches high summits.” – Mother Teresa

Gospel Text: (JN 15:9-17)
Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you
and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.”

In today’s Gospel, I believe The Lord gives us one of His many pearls of wisdom, “remain in my love”. He even tells us how and why. How? By keeping his commandments with an emphasis on loving one another. And, as if we need a reason beyond His asking us, He provides a reason why, that we might know His joy.

The Lord did not leave us orphans. He did not leave us alone. He has given us himself in the Eucharist. He has sent the Holy Spirit. He has taught us to pray and given us so much instruction in the way He lived His life. And He has given us His blessed Mother, not in a general sense, but as with the apostle John at the foot of the cross, very specifically to each of us, all to help us to be faithful that we might, “Remain in His love” so that “His joy might be in each of us”.