Fifth Sunday of Easter - Cycle A

Acts 6:1-7
1 Pt 2:4-9
Jn 14:1-12

In relation to the Culture of Life, this weekend’s readings reflect on our nature as a people, “a chosen race…a holy people.” This truth is expressed by the Church in our day through Pope John Paul II’s expression, “the People of Life” (Evangelium Vitae). In section 79 of that encyclical, the Pope invoked themes reminiscent of this weekend’s readings and tied into the overall theme of the Easter season:

“We are the people of life because God, in his unconditional love, has given us the Gospel of life and by this same Gospel we have been transformed and saved. We have been ransomed by the "Author of life" (Acts 3:15) at the price of his precious blood (cf. 1 Cor 6:20; 7:23; 1 Pet 1:19). Through the waters of Baptism we have been made a part of him (cf. Rom 6:4-5; Col 2:12), as branches which draw nourishment and fruitfulness from the one tree (cf. Jn 15:5). Interiorly renewed by the grace of the Spirit, "who is the Lord and giver of life", we have become a people for life and we are called to act accordingly.”

Moreover, the declaration of Jesus that he is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and his reference to the “works” that he and his people do, can be effectively summarized by saying that Jesus is the Way precisely because he is truth and life. The Son of God came into the world to destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn. 3:8), and as John 8 reveals, those works are lies and murder. Jesus, the Way, overcomes those works precisely by being the Truth (undoing the devil’s lies) and the Life (undoing the devil’s works of death.)

The Church’s commitment to the defense of human life, and the work of the People of Life, takes its motivation and its shape from this truth.