(Acts, 10,25-26.34-35.44-48; 1John, 4,7-10; John 15,9-17)
There is no limit to God’s love for man and the ways He expresses this love. The readings of today offer us abundant insight into the profundity of divine love and its unlimited manifestation. In this love, divinity opens its arms wide indiscriminately to man. It is holistic a love. It is the love that lifted humanity from the state of being a guilty servant to an acquitted friend.
The Holy Spirit’s action in today’s first reading is a strong indication of the absence of discrimination in the manifestation of divine love. Peter could not have learnt the lesson in a better way: God sets no limit to his love. Compelled by the vision he had, Peter boldly visited Cornelius the pagan household, in spite of his personal reservations. He must have outlined in his mind the rigorous process of initiation his pagan audience must pass through before being qualified to receive the grace of baptism. However, divine love could not be limited by human regulation. Salvation remains a gratuitous gift and not some meritorious achievement. These were the lessons Peter and the other disciples had to learn in a dramatic way. Thus while Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit descended on all the pagan listeners. Peter had no option than to baptize them since God himself in his love that knows no discrimination had already baptized them with the Holy Spirit!
Both the second reading and the Gospel of St. John read to us today celebrate the profundity of God’s love. Jesus himself reveals the depth of this love and how it changed the status of humanity: “A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends”. Again he says, “I shall not call you servants any more…I call you friends.” It was all an act of love! that is total, unconditional and boundless. This is the gift God gave to us in Christ. It is also the very demand Jesus is making of us: “Love one another as I have loved you”. The discrimination we propagate in different ways; the selective attention and preferential treatment we give to people; the practice of attaching conditions to the help we render to others; all these go contrary to the spirit of Christ who gave us a love that is total, unconditional and boundless and commanded us to love others exactly as he has loved us. May we therefore, pray in today’s Eucharistic celebration that the Almighty God may bestow on us the Risen Lord’s type of the heart so that we can love our neighbours with the same profound and sacrificial love as our Redeemer did. Happy Sunday +John I. Okoye
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