May God grant us in today's Eucharistic celebration,the graces to realise that Jesus loves us, it is then our duty to love one another as he loves us, but this can only be effective if we attune our hearts to that of Christ by being in constant union with Christ through the holy Eucharist.
DOCTRINE AND FAITH
(Acts 10, 25-27.34-35.44-48; 1 John 4,7-l0; John 15, 9-17: 6th Sunday of Easter, 9th May, 2021)
This Sunday's liturgy presents us with beautiful texts that speak to us of love and God who is love. We are truly at the pinnacle of the revelation of the New Testament.
In the Last Supper Jesus says to the disciples: As the Father loved me, so I too have loved you. Remain in my love. These are words that enlighten us and instill great joy in our hearts. Love comes from the Father, passes through the heart of Jesus and reaches us. We cannot claim to be the source of love. This would be an illusion full of pride on our part which goes against the very sense of love. The true source of love is God.
In the second reading John affirms that God is love. We often get the wrong idea of God, considering him as a more or less ruthless power, an uncompromising judge, and a tyrant. The Bible, on the other hand, reveals to us that God is love. He is absolute generosity and infinite benevolence. Love comes from the heavenly Father and passes through Jesus’ heart as he tells us: As the Father loved me, so I also loved you. Jesus did not even claim to be the source of love. He is aware that he receives love from the Father and that he is only the mediator of this love, the one who must transmit it to us. Jesus transmits this love to us in a very active way. In fact, in this same passage of the Gospel he tells us: No one has a greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. This is what he has done. In the Last Supper he thanked the Father, who placed an infinite love in his heart, to which he adhered with all his human and divine being. Thus, he intended to offer his life for the people he loved: not only for his disciples, but also for all men. We also, like Jesus and in him, must welcome the love that comes from the Father and remain in it, according to the command of Jesus: Abide in my love. We must remain in the love that Jesus transmits to us. To remain in this love, and not to go out of it on account of selfishness, sin and through every behaviour unworthy of the Christian and human vocation, is a wonderful, very positive program of life; it means to live, continuously, in love. Jesus makes us understand that our love must not be just one affective love, a superficial feeling, but a love effect, a love that manifests itself in observing his commandments. He says: If you keep my commandments, remain in my love. Love must manifest itself in concrete life, and actions; otherwise it is only an illusory love. Jesus asks us to observe his commandments, which can be summed up in this way: Love one another as I have loved you. We are loved by Jesus, and we have the duty to love as he loves us. Obviously, we cannot do this if we do not have his own heart within us. To love as Jesus loves us, we must welcome his heart within us. The Eucharist has the purpose of putting the heart of Jesus in us, so that it is truly effective in our lives and our whole live are guided by his generous feelings. This is the Christian ideal. Jesus shows us that his love is full of delicacy and generosity: You are my friends [... ]. I no longer call you servants [... ], but I have called you friends. For us it is an extraordinary thing to have Jesus as a friend: he, the Son of God; he, full of holiness; he, who is perfection himself. We are unworthy of it, but he wants to communicate his friendship to us. Jesus then tells us that his friendship is manifested with confidence, with the communication of God's thoughts and feelings, and with divine revelation: All that I have heard from the Father I have made known to you. The Christian life is a life of confidence in Jesus, and this too is a wonderful thing. Obviously, on our part, we must be ready to welcome the revelations of love that he wants to make to us. If we do not pray, and meditate, we cannot truly welcome what Jesus wants to tell us in the depths of our hearts. Living in this intimacy with Jesus, knowing what he wants us to do in every circumstance, living in effective love, being guided by Jesus, all these are truly extraordinary things; but it is also what corresponds to the deepest desires of our heart and infuses in us the most perfect joy, according to Jesus’ words: This I have told you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. These words also manifest Jesus' love for us. He loves us; therefore, he wants to communicate his joy to us, which is the joy of the Son of God full of love. Jesus wants us to live in constant, faithful and generous love, thus corresponding to our fundamental vocation. In fact, God, who is love, created us to communicate his love to us, to make us live in his love and to give us true joy, and perfect happiness, without any shadow of sin and selfishness.
To make this possible, God did not hesitate to give his own Son. John affirms in the second reading: In this is love: it was not we who loved God, but he who loved us and sent his Son as an instrument of forgiveness [this is the most exact translation of the Greek term ilasmos] for our sins. Here John insists that the initiative of love comes from God; God is the source of love. It was not us who loved God, but he who loved us and removed the great obstacle to the love that is in us, sin. God sent his Son as an instrument of forgiveness for our sins, thus making it possible for us to have a union of love with him. In baptism, God purifies us with the blood of his Son. In the sacrament of reconciliation Jesus intervenes as our advocate, to defend us and purify us from the sins committed after baptism; he enables us to be faithful to the love that comes from God.
The first reading shows us that this love of God is universal. In the Old Testament one could get the impression that God's love was limited to the chosen people. In reality, God had wanted the privilege of the Jewish people not to remain exclusive, but to be extended to all nations. Ever since Abraham's call he had said: In you all the families of the earth will be blessed (Gen 12,3). Therefore, his project is a universal project, which is realised through Jesus’ paschal mystery, through his mystery of death and resurrection. And as we are told in the first reading, Peter goes to the house of Cornelius, a pagan who was docile to God and inspired to have the Apostle come to his house to welcome the word of salvation. Inspired by God too, Peter does not hesitate to go to the house of a pagan to talk about Jesus, He understood that God does not prefer people, but those who fear him and practice justice, to whatever people they belong, is acceptable to him. God’s love is directed to all men, there is no longer any limitation. The election now extends to all men who believe. It is enough to adhere to Christ in faith, welcome the love of God that is communicated to us through Christ, be saved from sins and thus live in the perfect joy of communion of love with God. We must thank the Lord who makes us participants in this project of his love, and should be aware that we must continually progress in love. To correspond to our Christian vocation, we must develop a truly universal love within us. The Church is Catholic, that is, she is open and ready to welcome all nations into her bosom, to put them in communion with God and in communion with one another. The celebration of the Eucharist introduces us to this plan of God. Therefore, we can participate in it with trust and gratitude, in union with all the people called to live with us in the love of God. +John I. Okoye
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