SPEAKER_00: Every relationship eventually reveals what it is built on.
SPEAKER_00: The truth of a relationship is revealed when sacrifice and difficulties arise, when suffering arrives, when disappointment happens, when love costs you something.
SPEAKER_00: Because you see, anybody can say, I love you when in life is beautiful and everything is going well.
SPEAKER_00: The real question is what remains when life becomes difficult?
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly where we find Jesus in today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: These are not random words spoken casually to a crowd.
SPEAKER_00: This is the night before the crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: He is at the Last Supper.
SPEAKER_00: The atmosphere in the upper room has changed.
SPEAKER_00: The apostles may not fully understand what's happening, but they can feel it.
SPEAKER_00: Something is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Something is ending.
SPEAKER_00: Fear is beginning to creep into the room.
SPEAKER_00: And into that moment Jesus says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Not as a threat, not as emotional manipulation, but as a revelation of what real love actually looks like.
SPEAKER_00: At first hearing it almost sounds cold, sounds transactional.
SPEAKER_00: Almost like prove it.
SPEAKER_00: If you really love me, you'll obey me.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're honest, a lot of us live our faith life like this.
SPEAKER_00: We treat Christianity like a contract.
SPEAKER_00: We treat God like an accountant.
SPEAKER_00: We live constantly trying to balance some invisible ledger.
SPEAKER_00: Do I pray enough?
SPEAKER_00: Do I go to mass enough?
SPEAKER_00: Am I paying attention at Mass?
SPEAKER_00: Was I good enough this week?
SPEAKER_00: Did I disappoint God again?
SPEAKER_00: And slowly, without realizing it, faith becomes exhausting, a burden.
SPEAKER_00: Not because God is exhausting, but because performance is exhausting.
SPEAKER_00: There are many Catholics who are spiritually tired.
SPEAKER_00: Not because they stopped loving God, but because somewhere along the way they started believing that Christianity was about maintaining a perfect scorecard.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: In the original Greek, this is not even the it's out, it's not even how it's phrased.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not saying, if you love me, you better prove it.
SPEAKER_00: He's describing what love naturally does.
SPEAKER_00: If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear the difference?
SPEAKER_00: Not because you're forced to, not because you're afraid, not because you're negotiating for some affection, but because love has changed you.
SPEAKER_00: When someone truly loves, they move differently, they think differently, they sacrifice differently.
SPEAKER_00: No one has to force a mother to go and wake up in the middle of the night to take care of a sick child.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has to force a man who is deeply in love to rearrange his priorities for his family.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has to force a friendship to become loyal.
SPEAKER_00: Love naturally produces action.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how everything changes about Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is not looking for employees.
SPEAKER_00: He's not recruiting servants who punch a spiritual time card.
SPEAKER_00: He's not building a corporation, he's offering friendship.
SPEAKER_00: And I think many Catholics, even good Catholics, have never really truly understood this.
SPEAKER_00: We know God as creator, we know God as judge, God as king, but as friend, that almost feels too personal, too intimate, too close.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus says it plainly later in John's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I no longer call you slaves, I call you my friends.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: How staggering is that?
SPEAKER_00: The God who created the galaxies, the God whom the angels worship, the God whose voice shook Mount Sinai, that God whose glory made prophets collapse.
SPEAKER_00: That God looks at ordinary people like us and says, I want friendship with you.
SPEAKER_00: Not an arrangement, not transaction, not some weekly appointment.
SPEAKER_00: No, I want friendship with you.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where so many people miss the heart of Christianity because religion without friendship becomes duty.
SPEAKER_00: And duty without love becomes resentment.
SPEAKER_00: That is why some people practice a faith their whole lives and still feel spiritually cold, spiritually empty.
SPEAKER_00: They know about God, they fear God, they respect God, but they do not live with him.
SPEAKER_00: Not in perfection, but in friendship.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus says something even more incredible.
SPEAKER_00: I will not leave you orphaned.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I'm not abandoning you.
SPEAKER_00: Because the disciples are terrified of loss.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is talking about leaving, and they cannot imagine a life without him being there physically.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, neither can we.
SPEAKER_00: How do you have friendship with someone you can't physically see?
SPEAKER_00: That is why Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate, and he will be with you always.
SPEAKER_00: Always, not occasionally, not only when life is good, not only when you feel holy, always.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is not simply a vague force.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is the living presence of God dwelling within you.
SPEAKER_00: Which means you never pray alone, you never suffer alone, you never walk into a hospital room alone, you never carry grief alone.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us go through life hanging by a thread with anxiety, loneliness, silent depression, fear about the future, hidden addictions, regret over decisions that cannot be undone, the weight of trying to hold everything together, and still Jesus says, I will never, ever leave you orphaned.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not the story of humanity searching desperately for God.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is the story of God refusing to abandon humanity.
SPEAKER_00: Where does he continue to show up?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he shows up in your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: He shows up through the people that you encounter.
SPEAKER_00: Not always dramatically, sometimes very quiet, very subtle, like a whisper under the noise.
SPEAKER_00: Through forgiveness, through mercy, and unexpected moments of grace.
SPEAKER_00: He shows up in your suffering.
SPEAKER_00: But most importantly and most powerfully, he shows up right here on the altar.
SPEAKER_00: The same Jesus who sat at the Last Supper, the same Jesus who walked on the water, the same Jesus that conquered death is the same Jesus who says, I call you friends.
SPEAKER_00: I want friendship with you.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same Jesus that will be here.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a memorial of an absent man.
SPEAKER_00: This is the presence of the living God.
SPEAKER_00: Christ says to us, Come to me, remain with me, be my friend.
SPEAKER_00: The saints were not superheroes, they understood this.
SPEAKER_00: They were people who took that friendship seriously.
SPEAKER_00: And so, my brothers and sisters, maybe today the invitation is simple.
SPEAKER_00: Stop treating God like a distant stranger.
SPEAKER_00: Stop negotiating with him like a contract lawyer.
SPEAKER_00: Stop approaching faith like a spiritual performance.
SPEAKER_00: Start speaking to him like someone who loves you.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he does love you.
SPEAKER_00: And in a few moments, the greatest proof of that love will be placed into your hands in the form of a consecrated host.
SPEAKER_00: Not as a concept, not as an idea, not as an emotion and motivation, but Christ Himself present in the Eucharist as a gift of that promise that he will never, ever leave us.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.