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[_v.01_] Homily – May 25, 2025 / 6th Sunday Easter ● Acts 15:1-2, 22-29 ● Psalm 67 ● Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23 ● John 14:23-29 ●
“Do
not let your hearts be troubled.” These are words we all long to hear,
especially in moments of fear, anxiety, or uncertainty. But let’s be
honest—there are many times when our hearts are troubled or we we feel we are “in trouble or in
distress”. I’d like to begin with a recent example that was reported to me –as
many troubles are via the phone.
About
a week ago, I got a text from my sister who lives in Massachusetts. It was
simple: she was in the hospital having her appendix removed. I hadn’t even known
she was in any danger. Thankfully, the doctors caught the issue early. The
surgery went well, and she was back home the next day. But she described how it
began—with intense pain that woke her in the middle of the night. At first, she
didn’t know what was wrong. It was frightening, confusing. Her heart—and her
body—were troubled.
Did this ever happen to you? To one of
your loved ones?
In Gospel, Jesus speaks these words to
His disciples at the Last Supper—just before His arrest, His suffering, and His
death. He knows that their hearts are deeply troubled. He knows they will soon
see Him betrayed and crucified. And yet, He says to them, “Do not let your
hearts be troubled.”
What does Jesus mean? How can we find peace
in times of suffering?
2. A Spiritual Path: Examination, Medication, Reconciliation
Let’s explore this through three spiritual
steps that echo the medical journey: examination, medication, and
reconciliation.
a) Examination: Facing the Truth Honestly
Just
as a doctor begins with a diagnosis, the spiritual life begins with
self-examination. When we are in pain—physically, emotionally, spiritually—we
must ask, What is going on inside me?
What is the source of this trouble?
At the Last Supper, the disciples found
themselves under an unspoken examination. Jesus spoke honestly with them about
betrayal, about leaving them, about the challenges ahead. It was a moment of
truth.
I remember a time after I graduated from
college. I didn’t yet have a full-time job, and every evening at dinner my
father would ask, “Did you get a job today?” Night after night: “Did you get a
job today?” It became something of a ritual—an uncomfortable one—but it was
also an examination. He wasn’t trying to shame me; he was inviting me to live
in the truth and not remain passive in uncertainty.
Jesus invites us into that kind of
examination—not to condemn us, but to awaken us. Where is your heart troubled
right now? What pain are you carrying? Maybe it’s worry about your health, your
job, your family. Maybe it’s guilt or grief. Whatever it is, name it. Bring it
before God. That’s the first step toward healing.
b) Medication: Accepting God’s Mercy, Not Substitutes
After examination comes treatment. In the
hospital, after hours of uncertainty – before finding out it was her appendix,
my sister finally received medication and began to feel some relief. In the
spiritual life, God also offers healing—but we have to be careful what we reach for when our
hearts are in distress.
The temptation in our culture is to
self-medicate. And I don’t just mean pills. We self-medicate with food,
alcohol, drugs, shopping, media—anything to numb the pain or distract us from
the truth. A little chocolate might be harmless. But when we rely on these
things instead of facing our wounds honestly, they can become dangerous.
Sometimes, the medication becomes the replacement for the examination.
We don’t want to feel pain, so we skip the step of asking what’s wrong. But
Jesus doesn’t offer a quick fix—He offers something deeper: peace, the peace that the world
cannot give. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” He says. It’s
not the peace of escape or avoidance. It’s the peace of knowing that you are
loved and forgiven and never alone.
c) Reconciliation: Coming
Home to God, Others, and Ourselves
And this brings us to the final step:
reconciliation.
Jesus says, “In my Father’s house, there are
many dwelling places. I go to prepare a place for you.” That is a promise. It
is the promise of home—not
just in heaven, but a home here and now in the heart of God.
To be reconciled means to come home. To come
home to God. To come home to our true selves. To come home even to those we
have been distant from—our neighbors, our family, those we’ve wronged or been
hurt by. Reconciliation is not easy. It means admitting that we are broken, and
yet believing that God’s mercy is greater than our sin.
We see this in Jesus’s own Passion. When He
stood before Pontius Pilate, He was examined. Pilate wanted to know, “Are you a
king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born, and for this
I came into the world: to testify to the truth.” That was Jesus’s trial, His
examination, and He passed it by standing in the truth.
Jesus came not to be my truth or your truth, but to be the
Truth for all of us. He came to reconcile us with God by showing us
what it means to live fully, honestly, and lovingly. He sends us the Holy
Spirit, the Advocate, the Spirit of truth—to guide us in this path.
Brothers
and sisters, when your heart is troubled, go back to Jesus’s words:
“In my Father’s house, there are many dwelling
places… I go to prepare a place for you.”
That is not just a promise for the end of
your life. It is a promise for *today*. God is preparing a place for you—even
now, even in the midst of uncertainty.
Let
us then allow ourselves to be examined by Christ. Let us receive His mercy as
our true healing. And let us seek reconciliation—with God, with others, and
with ourselves. Because in the end, Christ does not come to take away all
trouble. He comes to walk with us *through* it—and to lead us home.
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