Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C (2025) - Fr James Baxter, OP

There’s something majestic about a great city. Looking down on one from a mountain or an aeroplane, the landmarks can certainly seem smaller, but being able to see the whole city from a height gives a greater sense of its vastness.

In the second reading for this Sunday (Rev 21:1-5), we have a brief excerpt from John’s vision of the new Jerusalem, the beautiful and holy city, which at the end of time comes down from God out of heaven. Later in the chapter, John tells of being carried away to a great high mountain, to be able to take in the city with all its glory. It is a majestic and uplifting vision, which is very much the point. So much of the Book of Revelation, this passage included, is there to lift the Church up, to give it encouragement, to assure God’s people that he wants to be with them, is with them, and will be with them, living among them in the holy city.

This is the encouragement that the Church needed at the time of persecution in which the Book of Revelation was written. In fact, though, the Church needs this encouragement in every place and time. Even though we sometimes speak of golden ages and springtimes in the history of the Church, there have always been problems, scandals, persecutions, and other reasons for discouragement.

Sometimes the reasons for discouragement are not from “out there”, but from our awareness of all the ways in which we personally are failing to advance in the Christian life. Sin can be discouraging, stubborn vices even more so. It may even seem at times as if we are moving backwards, further away from God than we were this time last year, weaker in faith and softer in virtue. The word ‘discouragement’ itself means that we lose heart, and so lose that which gives us life and strength.

Just as there are always sources of discouragement, there is a constant need for people in the Church to find encouragement themselves and be ready to give it to others. The apostles knew this and made encouragement a priority in their mission. When we imagine the heroics of the apostles, it is easy to think of them as constantly on the move, always ready to go to the next town to preach the Gospel to new people. But what we hear in the first reading today (Acts 14:21-27) is how the apostles Paul and Barnabas (the “son of encouragement”) returned to places where they had been before, to people who were already Christians. What were they doing? Luke tells is that they were “putting fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith.” Certainly the apostles were great disciple-makers, but they were also disciple-keepers, and they saw discouragement as the enemy to discipleship that it is.

How, though, do we avoid being discouraged in the first place? The virtue of hope is a gift that we are given at baptism, and when we cultivate this virtue it can be a great source of encouragement throughout our lives. The other two theological virtues, faith and charity, can get a lot more attention. But hope is the virtue that enables our faith and charity to continue to grow. It is the virtue by which we desire the happiness of eternal life with God, and keep desiring it. Hope is not simply an attitude of optimism that everything will work out in the end. It is an explicit desire for the fullness of life that is promised in our readings today.

What is that life like? Think back to that glorious vision of the holy city. There will be no more death. No more mourning or sadness. Recalling the words of an earlier prophecy (Is 25:8), John assures us that “every tear will be wiped away”, because God will be with his people, living among them. In this brief passage of today we have few details, but enough to look forward to eternal glory and to long for it, drawing the encouragement to stay close to God today, as we hope to be forever.

Fr James Baxter, OP is the Parish Priest of Broadway, Glebe, and Pyrmont, New South Wales.