+ Jesus has just told us in this gospel passage that the reason that he wants us to remain and live in his love is that we all might be joy in each other, and that our joy might be complete. There are two feelings and experiences and realities that can capture the essence of a pure relationship with God – and they are JOY and PEACE. "Remaining in the Lord" who first invites us into relationship with him produces these two realities, which are really inseparable – although today Jesus speaks first of JOY (later he will speak, again, of PEACE). When a glass is filled to overflowing, the glass must be "filled with joy," because it now contains the fullness of what it can contain. When the "glass of our soul" is filled with the grace of God, even to overflowing, it contains the FULLNESS OF JOY – because it is meant to, it can, and it now does! What makes this all operational is "remaining in his love" – it entails going outside of ourselves, and our comfort zones and actually loving and serving others as Jesus not only asked his followers to do, but did first as an example.
The community of loving and serving disciples of Christ is the Church. All are called to be members of it – including the Gentiles, including us! May we be the best members that we can be today – because we remain in Jesus, and thus in each other, while he abides and remains in all of us as fully as we allow him to!
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; I know them, and they follow me – and they are filled with joy!
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