Sixth Sunday of Easter
As you heard today’s scripture reading (or follow it in the missal) did you notice a word stand out? Between the second reading and the gospel, “love” is found eighteen times – nine times in the second reading and nine times in the gospel reading. Apart from today’s reading themselves, there is no denying that love is central to the Christian story. Without the primacy of the knowledge and experience of God’s love and the call to love others in the same way that God loves, Christianity falls apart.
Keeping in mind the primacy of love in today's scripture readings, here are my three points for reflection:
“For God is Love”
At the risk of over repetition, I would like to recount a story that Pope Francis narrated at the Festival of Families when he visited the United States in 2015. He said that a child once asked him the question, “What did God do before God created the world?” Pope Francis admits that he was a little tongue-tied at first. But then he said to the child, “Before God created the world, God loved. That’s what God was doing. God was loving.”
What Pope Francis said in 2015, St. John had already said in the 2nd Century. Today’s second reading from St John says, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). “In this is love,” he says, “Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us” (1 Jn 4:10).
Practical Implication: No other phrase has more meaning for me than the phrase, “God is love!” I have devoted my life singularly to God and religion. It is very important to me that, that to which I have devoted my life, is about love. As I often say to myself these days, “If not for love, then why?” In light of today’ scripture readings, I invite you today to pose the same question to yourself.
“No Greater Love”
Today’s Gospel reading continues the love theme. Jesus says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). The great 12th Century Catholic philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas can help us understand this better. He says that “Charity (by which he means love) is the habit of choosing to be vulnerable enough to be drawn to “the good,” to love it, and to act accordingly.” Aquinas also describes the love of charity as being like the love of friendship. “When we love our friends,” Aquinas says, “we open ourselves to enjoying them for their own sake and we wish good things for them.” In many ways, Aquinas was describing all of salvation history. In Jesus, God becomes vulnerable – vulnerable enough to become human; vulnerable enough to love the most unloved; vulnerable enough to say, “I have called you friends” (Jn 15:15). After calling them friends, he laid down his life for them. This is love.
Practical Implication: I think it is important for God, our families, those we love, those we consider friends, and even our acquaintances to know what we mean when we say we love them. It would mean that we are willing to be vulnerable. I would mean that we are willing to be friends in the way Jesus describes friendship. It means willing to lay it all down. Relationships thrive on genuine love. Similarly, the Church must be vulnerable. If the Church cannot be vulnerable; if the Church cannot call the most vulnerable in the world, “friends”; if the Church cannot lay it all down like Jesus, then she fails to be faithful to her God. God is love and you, me, and the Church must fashion our life and ministry around love.
“Whoever is Without Love…”
John says in today’s second reading, “Whoever is without love does not know God” (1 Jn 4:8). We might say that lovelessness is godlessness. “Whoever is without love…” Are there people without love? I am not sure if anyone can be completely without love, but we do see loveless and godless things. Mental illnesses aside, think about someone taking a gun and shooting innocent people down. Think about people who groom and pedal young people into human trafficking. Think about people who put profit margins above the human person and the common good. Think about racism, or ethnic cleansing, or religious violence, or domestic abuse, or child abuse, or senseless wars. These are example of lovelessness. Lovelessness is godlessness because “God is love.”
Practical Implication: The above are extreme example of lovelessness. That is not us. But we must watch against those ordinary ways in which lovelessness can enter our lives – unforgiveness, revenge, prejudice, hate, judgementalism, deception, unfaithfulness, lust, greed, pornography, self-centeredness. I pray we never reach a point where lovelessness destroys the image and likeness in which we are created. Because without love, not only do we lose God but also we lose ourselves.
The Eucharist is a Sacrament of love. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist we encounter Love. Having celebrated this Eucharist, may the world know through us that “God is Love!”
- Fr. Satish Joseph