Pour into our hearts …
“Abide in my love.”
Exegetical artist Chris Powers over at Full of Eyes offers a meditation through art on Jesus’s words in John 15:12, that stand at the heart of this week’s Gospel lesson. In this picture, “I tried to show at least two things,” he writes: “First that our love only comes from God’s love in Christ (thus all the branches streaming from the wound). Secondly, that our love is an imaging of God’s love in Christ (thus the fruit borne by cruciform saints).”
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
— Jesus Christ, the Son of God (John 15:11)
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Texts for This Week
Prayer
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
I will not leave you comfortless…
The inimitable 16th C English composer William Byrd sets to rich madrigal polyphony Jesus’s beautiful promise to his Disciples in John 14:18:
I will not leave you comfortless, Alleluia.
I go, and I will come to you, Alleluia.
and your heart shall be joyful, Alleluia.
Here performed by a group of mendicant Mennonite musicians, the Oasis Chorale.
