May 23, 2025 // Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s Gospel: John 15:12-17
Reflect on the Word //
A classroom full of confused eighth-grade faces stare at me as I smile back with an expression of joyful delight. They are confused as to why an answer one student had confidently given was wrong. I am excited to disabuse yet another class of Confirmation Candidates of the notion that Confirmation is an opportunity for the candidate to choose God and confirm one’s own choice of being Catholic. It takes a moment but once the truth sinks in—that Confirmation isn’t about our choosing God but of His confirming His choice of us, His love for us—as my students would say, “minds are blown.”
These almost yearly encounters with my students move me to wonder if the Apostles reacted similarly to Jesus when He declared over them, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you” (John 15:16). After all, these were men who had been choosing to follow Jesus for three years in and around Galilee, Capernaum, and, finally, Jerusalem. They listened to Him, learned from Him, stayed with Him. They were His followers, His closest collaborators; surely, they were His friends. What must they have been asking themselves as Jesus said, “I no longer call you slaves . . . ” (John 15:15)?
When were they slaves? These were all free men, with careers, families, well established in society. He called each of them and they freely chose to leave everything behind to follow him. A slave cannot choose to leave his work with one master to follow another. Only one who is free can choose to follow; one can only follow what or whom they have first encountered and desired.
They are His friends for the very reason that they left their former lives behind to follow Him. Their following Him was, indeed, their free choice, but a choice made possible only by His call, His choice of them. We belong to God; we are His friends not because we chose Him, but because He chooses us and gives us the grace we need to be free from the slavery of sin and to grow in our friendship with Him.
Relate to the Lord // Reflect on the gift of your Confirmation and ask for the intercession of your patron Saint today!
Sister Maria Fatima grew up in Rhode Island and entered the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in 2005. She holds a MA in Theology from the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity. Sister is in her eleventh year of enlightening middle school minds and drawing hearts to Jesus while teaching religion and history. She currently resides at the motherhouse in Ann Arbor, MI, having previously taught in Texas, Florida, and Ohio. She is a contributing author to our Lent devotional All She Had.
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