As Eastertide continues, we are invited to live as part of God’s glorious plan to bring about a new creation. Jesus’s new commandment to ‘love one another just as I have loved you’ is the key to transforming our world. (Gospel)

The First Reading continues the story of the mission of Paul and Barnabas. Just as they encouraged the new Christian disciples to persevere in faith, we too can be encouraged to see what can be achieved when we allow God to work within and among us.

The Psalm calls us to sing of God’s goodness with the whole of creation, proclaiming God’s compassion, love and glory to all.

The vision of the heavenly Jerusalem in the Second Reading promises a new heaven and a new earth – a new creation where God lives among God’s people, becoming God-with-us.

This week I might pray to love others more and more as Jesus loves us, so that I can help play my own part in making all things new. I remember those parts of the world where hatred and destruction are evident, asking that love and mercy may prevail.