April 16, 2015 Thursday: Second Week of Easter

Thursday of the Second Week of Easter

April 16, 2015

Gospel: John 3:31-36

The obstetrician was not at home. His five-year-old daughter answered the doorbell. “Is your daddy in?” asked the stranger. “No, he’s gone,” the little girl replied. “When will he return?” “I don’t know. He’s out on an eternity case!”

The little girl meant “maternity” but her mispronunciation segues into a higher reality, every person born is not only a maternity case but an eternity case as well. We were born to live forever. What form of life, we don’t know. What we know is that Jesus lived, died and rose to life again. He says in today’s gospel: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.”

What constitutes believing in the Son that would merit eternal life? It is obeying His words, for He ‘speaks the Word of God.’ It is imitating His life because His words reflect His life. And His life was defined by love and service. “He does not ration His gift of the Spirit.”

During the Middle Ages, a legend spread that somewhere in the New World was a “Fountain of Youth.” If old men drank from it, it made them young and alive forever. Roundabout us is a ‘fountain of youth’ which few recognize. It is a sparkling spring of opportunities where we can gain new purposes of living, where we can love and serve, like Christ, the first eternity case. (Fr. GdP, SVD Bible Diary)