COMMENT ON THE LITURY OF THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTERE EASTER
commonly called Rogation Sunday
Collect
O Lord, from whom all good things do come; Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that are good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Readings
Jas 1,22-27; Jn 16, 23-33
Comment
In the incarnate Word, which is Jesus Christ, we can find our true nature, in the image and likeness of God; but the apostle James exhorts us not to limit ourselves to momentary satisfaction: our inner gaze must remain fixed in it, so that the Spirit transforms us, restoring divine beauty in us.
The Lord does not simply seek hearers of his word, but people who put it into practice ("do wat it says"; Jas 1:22): for the Christian, being, doing, must predominate over appearing.
In the past, on this feast day called Rogation Sunday, special prayers were presented to God for the harvest of the land and for those who worked it. Today we continue to recognize that through God's blessing our work can bear fruit of charity in abundance.
The feast day is an occasion to ask God to teach us to carry out our work with commitment and dedication, as a contribution to the good of the human community; but also to cultivate with perseverance the still arid territories of our hearts, so that they can produce fruits of conversion.
Jesus exhorts his disciples to ask, to ask in his name, directly to the Father. And whatever they ask in his name, the Father will grant; the guarantee is given by the fact that the Father loves them because they loved Jesus and believed that he came from God.
Asking in the name of Jesus means that our requests must move within the perimeter traced by the gospel, by the very example that Jesus gave us with his life. No disciple is greater than the teacher, so sometimes we don't get what we ask for because we ask for the wrong thing, something that takes us away from the true following of Christ.
We therefore ask God to teach us to look "intently into the perfect law" (Jas 1:25), which is not simply a list of precepts, but the Son of God who became man. And thus, listening attentively, contemplating assiduously, may the Spirit transform us into him, "from glory to glory" (2 Cor 3:18).
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
