SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48; Ps 98
1 Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15:9-17
REMAIN IN MY LOVE
No one is a stranger to the word and the feelings of love. Love has been the most used and sometimes the most misused and misunderstood word of the English language. Many people use love to describe their likeness for their hobbies and other things, but to love football or ice-cream is different from loving a Human Being.
Unlike the English language, the Greek has different words to describe the different realities of love. “Eros” is the Greek word for romantic love. It is the love that exists between a husband and a wife. The love that describes the affection between friends is “Filia” in Greek.
In the gospel for this Sunday (Jn 15:9-17), Jesus calls us to love but to love in the way that God loves us. The New Testament uses the word “agape” for the love of God and the Christian. It does not use any of the Greek words that has been known already. The word “agape” is not the love word to be associated with the gods or the divine.
This is because it demands the divine to look down and associate himself with the things that are beneath them. It would mean that the gods could take that place of man and suffer for him. In the ancient world, it is believed that the gods could help them conquer their enemies, save them from disease, give them victory in war but the idea of the gods loving them in the way of agape was unthinkable and ridiculous. For Jesus to say that God loves men so that he dies for them would have been very strange.
Yet this is the kind of love that God has shown us through Jesus Christ. He did not only become one of us but he sacrifices himself for our sake. In the “agape” of God he allows himself to die for our sake. The Lord died for us not regarding our lowliness and sin. Agape is not only a feeling but conscious and intentional decision to make the other better
Jesus in today’s reading commands us “This I command you: love one another” (Jn 15:12,17). This is not an advice but a command. To confidently call ourselves Christians we must live in love. For the Christian agape is love that is not only attracted to the favoured and favourable but to the repulsive and unappreciated. This is what Jesus meant when he says “if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you. Even sinners do the same” (Luke 6:33). Agape is the choice not a feeling. We choose to love because Jesus has commanded us to do so. We love (agape) even those who hurt us, have discriminated against us and would do it again when they have the opportunity. It is to put the interest of others above our own. We must love even when the one we are to love does not deserve it.
To love one another means that love must be the characteristic of the Christian community. Everyone must be ready to go the extra mile for the other regardless of quarrels or grudges. Love must begin from amongst us as Christians, believers of the same Church and with all Christians all over the world. It is only when our communities and churches are characterised by love that our message will be effective.
The Chrisitan community like any other human family has its own problems. It has its own problems of quarrels and misunderstandings among members. That is why he told them “…remain in my love” (Jn 15:9). Jesus recognises that on our own it will be very difficult. It will be difficult to do good to someone who has clearly been hostile to you. To have love towards another who discriminates towards you even in the Church.
To ask us to remain in his love is to contemplate his love always. To think about it and pray for it. When we contemplate the love of Jesus, we would be able to chose to love even those who wish evil for us. To truly love is to have agape and only God can give that.
Lord, thank you for loving me, by dying on the cross to free me.
Lord grant me the grace to love others as you have loved me.
Keep me Lord always in the circle of your love. Amen
REMAIN IN HIS LOVE.
God bless you.
BY Rev. Fr. Delight Arnold Carbonu
