Breaking the Word: Never Let Us Go

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Never Let Us Go

5th Sunday of Easter (C)

Readings: Acts 14:21-27; Psalm 144 (145):8-13a; Apocalypse 21:1-5; John 13:31-33, 34-35

Picture: By Leon Buter on Unsplash

Why don’t they run away? This is the question that Nobel prize-winning author, Kazuo Ishiguro, tries to answer, in a recent YouTube video. One of a series of brief videos marking the 20th anniversary of his critically-acclaimed novel, Never Let Me Go. The book tells the story of a group of school children, growing up in the late 1990s, in a fictional and dystopian version of the city of London. Despite living in a terribly unjust and oppressive society, and facing a horribly bleak future, the characters in the novel never rebel or run away. Why? In his highly insightful response, Ishiguro observes that, in the real world, many people who live in difficult situations actually don’t run away. (I)f that’s all you know, he goes on to say, if that’s the world you’ve grown up in, you cannot see the boundaries for which you have to run. You cannot see what you have to rebel against, and instead you just try, sometimes heroically, to find love, friendship, something meaningful and decent, within the horrific fate that you’ve been given… In other words, the characters in the novel don’t run away, because it never occurs to them to do so, since they cannot see their own oppression.

Why don’t they run away? This is a question that could also be asked about the characters in our scriptures today. In the gospel, Judas has just left to betray his Master. And the authorities will soon come to arrest and torture Jesus, and condemn him to a painful death. So why doesn’t Jesus flee? Similarly, in the first reading, Paul and Barnabas have only recently suffered rejection, persecution, and life-threatening physical violence in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra. Yet, instead of going home by a different route, they choose to pass through these same dangerous cities. Unlike the characters in Ishiguro’s novel, Jesus, Paul and Barnabas are very much aware of the dangers they face. So why don’t they run away?

The first reading offers a practical reason. We’re told that Paul and Barnabas return to the cities they had visited earlier to put fresh heart into the disciples who live there. To encourage them to persevere in following the Lord. They also commission leaders to care for those communities. In other words, Paul and Barnabas do it out of love. The same love that we believe leads God’s only begotten Son to come among us as a human person, and to give his life for us on a cruel cross. By bravely returning to visit their friends, Paul and Barnabas are observing the new commandment Jesus gives in the gospel, loving others as Christ first loved us.

But that’s not the full extent of the story. If it was, then God simply remains stuck with us in a terrible situation. What we also believe is that God’s merciful love is so strong, it reaches beyond the boundaries of Death itself, and raises Jesus to Life. So that the Lord becomes for all a Light capable of uncovering the often hidden ways in which people are oppressed, the Way to true freedom, and a Witness to what it means to live a fully human life. Isn’t this why, even as he faces the darkness of betrayal and persecution, Jesus still speaks of being glorified? A reference not to the workings of evil, but to the triumph of Love. Isn’t this how God brings about the new heaven and new earth mentioned in the second reading? Isn’t this how Jerusalem–that shameful city where Jesus was betrayed and killed–becomes as beautiful as a bride all dressed for her husband, where God lives among God’s people? Isn’t this how God chooses to wipe away all tears from human eyes?

And isn’t this consoling message relevant even for us, who live in one of the world’s most affluent countries, and worship in one of its richest parishes? For beneath the attractive surface of our shiny city, and perhaps even behind the sturdy doors of our own comfy homes, aren’t there still possible signs of oppression? Why, for example, is our fertility rate so low? Why are so many of our young people facing mental health issues, including depression and burnout, sometimes to the point of suicide? And why do we seem so prone to addictions and abusive actions of various kinds?… You cannot see what you have to rebel against, and instead you just try, sometimes heroically, to find love, friendship, something meaningful and decent, within the horrific fate that you’ve been given… Could these words of a brilliant novelist speak to our situation too? Why else don’t more of us at least try to rebel or run away?

Some days ago, it was reported that a baby elephant had been knocked down and killed by a truck in Malaysia. And the news carried an image of the mother-elephant with its head pressed against the side of the truck, as if trying to move it. Why didn’t she run away? Isn’t the answer obvious? In her love for her baby, she couldn’t bring herself to let it go.

Sisters and brothers, as we continue to celebrate this joyous Easter season, how is God refusing to let us go today?

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Breaking News: Ordinary Time

Apart from those seasons having their own distinctive character, thirty-three or thirty-four weeks remain in the yearly cycle that do not celebrate a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ. Rather, especially on the Sundays, they are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects. This period is known as Ordinary Time. Ordinary Time begins on Monday after the Sunday following 6 January and continues until Tuesday before Ash Wednesday inclusive. It begins again on Monday after Pentecost and ends before Evening Prayer I of the First Sunday of Advent. ~ General Norms for the Liturgical Year & Calendar, nn 43-44

From 36th Jesuit General Congregation

It is our union with one another in Christ that testifies to the Good News more powerfully than our competences and abilities.... In our individualistic and competitive age, we should remember that the community plays a very special role since it is a privileged place of apostolic discernment.... The Jesuit community is a concrete space in which we live as friends in the Lord. This life together is always at the service of mission, but because these fraternal bonds proclaim the Gospel, it is itself a mission. –Companions in a Mission of Reconciliation and Justice (CMRJ), nn. 7-9.

With the poor, we can learn what hope and courage mean.... In our communities and apostolates, we hear the call to rediscover hospitality to strangers, to the young, to the poor, and to those who are persecuted. Christ himself teaches us this hospitality. –CMRJ, nn. 15-16.

At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is the transforming encounter with the mercy of God in Christ that moves us to a generous personal response. The experience of the merciful gaze of God on our weakness and sinfulness humbles us and fills us with gratitude, helping us to become compassionate ministers to all.... For us Jesuits, compassion is action, an action discerned together. Yet we know that there is no authentic familiarity with God if we do not allow ourselves to be moved to compassion and action by an encounter with the Christ who is revealed in the suffering, vulnerable faces of people, indeed in the suffering of creation. –CMRJ, nn. 19-20.

(T)he Society must respond more decisively to the Church’s call for a new evangelization, giving special emphasis to ministry to and with the young and with families.... A special gift Jesuits and the Ignatian family have to offer to the Church and her mission of evangelization is Ignatian spirituality, which facilitates the experience of God and can therefore greatly help the process of personal and communal conversion. –CMRJ, nn. 22-23.

In many societies, there is an increased level of conflict and polarization, which often gives rise to violence that is all the more appalling because it is motivated and justified by distorted religious convictions. In such situations, Jesuits, along with all who seek the common good, are called to contribute from their religious-spiritual traditions towards the building of peace, on local and global levels. –CMRJ, n. 28.

Pope Francis has emphasized the fundamental connection between the environmental crisis and the social crisis in which we live today. Poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization are linked with environmental degradation. These are not separate crises but one crisis that is a symptom of something much deeper: the flawed way societies and economies are organised. The current economic system with its predatory orientation discards natural resources as well as people. For this reason, Pope Francis insists that the only adequate solution must be a radical one. The direction of development must be altered if it is to be sustainable. We Jesuits are called to help heal a broken world, promoting a new way of producing and consuming, which puts God’s creation at the center.... The multifaceted challenge of caring for our common home calls for a multifaceted response from the Society. We begin by changing our personal and community lifestyles, adopting behaviour coherent with our desire for reconciliation with creation. – CMRJ, nn. 29-30

From 35th Jesuit General Congregation

From General Congregation 35

By sending us to 'those physical and spiritual places which others do not or have difficulty reaching,' the Pope entrusts to us the task to 'build bridges of understanding and dialogue,' according to the best tradition of the Society, in the diversity of its ministries.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 6

To be missioned to this work 'at the New Frontiers of our times' always requires that one also be rooted at the very heart of the Church. This tension, specific to the Ignatian charism, opens the way to true creative fidelity.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 13

In every mission that we carry out, we seek only to be where (Christ) sends us. The grace we receive as Jesuits is to be and to go with him, looking on the world with his eyes, loving it with his heart and entering into its depths with his unending compassion.
- Decree on Identity, n. 15

For ultimately, there is no reality that is only profane for those who know how to look. We must communicate this look and provide a pedagogy inspired by the Spiritual Exercises, that carries people - especially the young - into it.
- Decree on Identity, n. 10

Our ministries of proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Life of Christ in the sacraments continue to be fundamental for our mission and our lives together as Jesuits.
- Decree on Mission, n. 19

The complexity of the problems we face and the richness of the opportunities offered demand that we engage in building bridges between rich and poor and establishing advocacy links of mutual support between those who hold political power and those who find it difficult to voice their interests. Our intellectual apostolate provides an inestimable help in setting up these bridges, offering us new ways of understanding in depth the mechanism and links among our present problems.
- Decree on Mission, n. 28

Jesuit community is not just for mission, it is itself mission.
- Decree on Mission, n. 41

In this global context it is important to highlight the extraordinary potential represented by our character as an international and multicultural body. Acting consistently with this character can not only enhance the apostolic effectiveness of our work but in a fragmented and divided world it can witness to the reconciliation in solidarity of all the children of God.
- Decree on Mission, n. 43

Faith in Jesus Christ teaches us that self-realization comes from self-giving and that freedom is not so much the power to choose as the power to order our choices toward love. At the same time, love for Jesus Christ and the desire to follow him call us to trusting commitment. Commitment to the Word Incarnate cannot be separated from commitment to the concrete manifestations of the Word that are at the center of our lives, the Church and the Society which exists to serve the Church.
- Decree on Obedience, n. 19

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Never Let Us Go

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