A reflection on the readings for May 5, 2024 — The Sixth Sunday of Easter. (When audio is available, you can find it here.)
As you heard today’s scripture reading (or read 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, 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.”
As we heard in today’s second reading, John had already said this centuries ago when he wrote, “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).
No other phrase has more meaning for me than the phrase, “God is love!” I have singularly devoted my life 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 is not for love, then why?” I invite you today to pose the same question to yourself.
“No Greater Love”
Today’s Gospel reading 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.” That is 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 his them. This is love.
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 peddle 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.”
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. May 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; 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!”
Image: Adobe Stock. By Sittichok.
Fr. Satish Joseph was ordained in India in 1994 and incardinated into the archdiocese of Cincinnati in 2008. He has a Masters in Communication and Doctorate in Theology from the University of Dayton. He is presently Pastor at Immaculate Conception and St. Helen parishes in Dayton, OH. He is also the founder Ite Missa Est ministries (www.itemissaest.org) and uses social media extensively for evangelization. He is also the founder of MercyPets (www.mercypets.org) — a charitable fund that invites pet-owners to donate a percent of their pet expenses to alleviate child hunger. MercyPets is active in four countries since its founding in December 2017. Apart from serving at the two parishes, he facilitates retreats, seminars and parish missions.
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