The Gospel for Saturday of the fifth week of Easter is taken from John 15:18, 21. Jesus said to his disciples, if the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belong to the world, the world would love its own. But because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you. No slave is greater than his master.

If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the One who sent me. There’s something hopeful in realizing that as we have continued to preach and teach this beautiful message of God flowing to us through Jesus and explain through the Holy Spirit that what we’re really receiving is an understanding of who we really are. God is asking us to be nothing other than who he created us to be. And when we bring that truth to someone who is caught in the lies that they have created, there’s always going to be hatred and a desire to destroy the one who speaks the truth.

Father, help us never to be discouraged. The world is changing, is moving more and more into being what God intends it to be. Help us to see that and to take courage in simply being the truth, being a person who is able to understand that they are vehicles of God’s grace, changing the world we live in, making it into the kingdom of God. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.