Introduction: May you continue to experience the love GOD has for you, especially as demonstrated in the life, ministry, teaching, example, death, and resurrection of Jesus and may you model that love in your concern for others.
We have all heard of philanthropists. Those are people who demonstrate a loving concern for others usually by making donations of money to charities. It comes from two Greek words: φιλια (philia - love of duty and relationship) and ανθρωρος (anthropos - human). The word implies that the philanthropist is a true humanist (which is positive, but may imply that person is gaining something from their acts, such as a tax break or recognition from others).
We may find the words, “agapist” and “agapism.” Both words come from the Greek word αγαπη (agape) which means “unconditional love” or that type of love GOD has for each human. It is a total, selfless love. Its focus is on the other person. It is distinguished from other Greek words for love which are positive, but have a certain self-interest involved. We are called to love with αγαπη (agape) love – totally unconditional love for another.
Today’s readings remind us of the calling each Christian has received to be like Jesus – by being an apostle (one who is sent), an evangelist (a bearer of Good News), and a philanthropist (lover of others) or better yet an “agapist” (unconditional lover of others). The concept of a Christian vocation (calling from GOD) is not limited to clergy, those in religious orders, or paid church staff members. All who consider themselves disciples (disciplined followers) of Jesus are called to carry on His mission and ministry.
First Reading: Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48: The pagans have received the Holy Spirit just as much as we have.
Commentary: Jesus was the Messiah of Judaism, bringing to completion the promises made to Abraham. It came as a surprise to the first Christians that the salvation brought by Jesus was meant not just for Jews alone but for all the peoples of the earth. This is the scene where it happens. Peter has been prepared for it by a vision which annulled the Jewish food-laws. Then he was summoned to bring the Gentile Cornelius to the faith. Now, even while he is speaking to Cornelius and his household, the Spirit takes matters (so to speak) into his own hands and comes down upon Cornelius. A gentile Pentecost. Today also we are happy to think of our own group as the chosen ones, neglecting the breadth of God’s love and desire that all people should turn to him and be saved. We can read again and again that Jesus actually went out of his way to welcome lepers, prostitutes, tax-collectors, and we still find it hard to believe that to God they are not ‘undesirables’. God has no favourites, but it is much more comfortable for us to stay snugly wrapped up in our own neat cocoons.
Responsorial Psalm: 98:1-4: The Lord has shown his salvation to the nations.
The psalm reminds us that the saving power of GOD is to be proclaimed to all peoples in all nations. How appropriate is it for us to hear this psalm as we contemplate the apostolic or missionary calling that each of us has received. The saving power of GOD can reach all peoples through the living out of the Good News in the loving service and lives of believers. This is the first and best way for people to experience the evangelion (Good News), through the loving service and care that believers show to each other and to those who still need to become familiar with the Message of GOD’s love.
Second Reading: 1 John 4:7-10: Let us love one another, since love comes from God
Commentary: The commandment that we should love one another is based on the staggering truth that love of God and of our neighbour is no more than a response to and a reflection of God’s love for us. Our love is not an initiative on our part but only a poor reply to the love lavished by God. So total and so expansive in God’s nature is love, that unless we love others we cannot claim to be children of God, or even to know God. The knowledge itself sparks our love. The central truth is that God’s nature is love, and this is shown by the fact, repeated twice within these few verses, that he sent his Son as an atonement for our sins. Throughout the Old Testament we have seen that God’s love is strong, passionate and forgiving, but never to the extent of sending his Son. If his love as seen in the Old Testament demanded a response, how much more as seen in the New?
Gospel: John 15:9-17: You are my friends if you do what I command you.
Commentary: The word ‘commandment’ often implies coercion and regimentation, and ‘obedience’ implies an unwilling or even a sulky child. In the case of God’s commands, however, a commandment is a gift, indicating the way in which love can be expressed; and obedience is a way of seeking to draw closer to God by imitation. The lover seeks to act like the beloved, to be modelled on the qualities which are loved and admired. The commands of God are not random or domineering, but are indications of the ways in which we can draw just a little nearer to the infinite qualities which are seen in the creating and redeeming God. The generosity seen in the beauties of nature and humanity, in the beauty of tolerance and forgiveness are reflections of the divine qualities. This is how Jesus kept his Father’s commandments and remained in his love, and how we too may do the same.
It might even be said that Jesus needed to suffer so that we might see that God too can endure suffering. Suffering and the supreme suffering of death are human experiences which cannot be predicated of God, and so Jesus himself took them on to share and ennoble these also. Jesus showed his love of the Father and his love of humanity by adopting and enduring the experiences which cannot touch an impassive God. Such is the full meaning of the love expressed by ‘as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.’
Today’s reading adds three more dimensions to the concept of the love shared by Jesus and his Father and by Jesus and his disciples. It is a love of friendship not of subservience. Linked to the awed reverence for God there has always been an astounding warmth and even humour of friendship in the Jewish tradition of love of God. Abraham was known as ‘the friend of God’ (this still persists in the Moslem tradition). We see it in the preposterous bargaining of Abraham with God over Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18, which one feels they must both have enjoyed! It comes again in David’s unselfconscious joy as he dances before the Lord (2 Samuel 6), in the intimacy of the prophet Jeremiah’s frank complaints to God about the treatment he has to endure for insisting on his message of doom. Again in the warm relationship to God of the charismatic Galilean rabbis of the time of Jesus: Abba Honi actually threatens God that the people will stop calling God ‘Abba’ if he does not send rain. When God teases him by sending a few drops of rain, Honi again complains, to be rewarded with a torrential deluge. Honi counters with a further complaint and is at last rewarded with a steady rain.
The second aspect of Christ’s love expressed in this passage is that he lays down his life for his friends. Christ’s death was not only the expression of loving obedience to his Father but also the extreme expression of his literally boundless love for his friends whom God reconciled by that shedding of blood.
A third aspect is the openness of this friendship. One of the principal aspects of true friendship is openness, the trust which permits friends to have no secrets from one another. We can have no secrets from Christ, and he on the other hand reveals to us all we can understand about the deity, with a fearless intimacy and frankness in prayer which equal and exceed that of any human friendship.
Reflection: What is the greatest act of love which one can give for the sake of another? Jesus defines friendship - the mutual bond of trust and affection which people choose to have for one another - as the willingness to give totally of oneself - even to the point of laying down one's life for a friend. How is such love possible or even desirable? God made us in love for love. That is our reason for being, our purpose for living, and our goal in dying.
God is the source and origin of love - divine and human
Scripture tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8) - and everything he does flows from his immense love for us. He loved us so much - far beyond what we could ever expect or deserve - that he was willing to pay any price to redeem us from our slavery to sin and death. That is why the Father sent us his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave up his life as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. In this great exchange - the Father giving up his Son to death on the cross in order to give us abundant everlasting life and adopt us as his beloved sons and daughters in Christ (Romans 8:14-17).
God's love has been poured into our hearts
It is for this reason that we can take hold of a hope that does not fade and a joy that does not diminish because God has poured his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:5). God's love is not limited or subject to changing circumstances. It is an enduring love that has power to change and transform us to be like him - merciful, gracious, kind, forgiving, and steadfast in showing love not only for our friends, but for our enemies as well. God's love is boundless because he is the source of abundant life, perfect peace, and immeasurable joy for all who open their hearts to him. That is why Jesus came to give us abundant life through the gift and working of the Holy Spirit.
A new way of loving and serving one another
Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment - a new way of loving and serving one another. Jesus' love was wholly directed toward the good of others. He love them for their sake and for their welfare. That is why he willingly laid down his own life for us to free us from sin, death, fear, and everything that could separate us from the love of God. Our love for God and our willingness to lay down our life for others is a response to the exceeding love God has given us in Christ. Paul the Apostle states, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?... For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:35,38-39).
Friendship with God
Jesus calls his disciples his friends. Jesus not only showed his disciples that he personally cared for them and sought their welfare. He personally enjoyed their company and wanted to be with them. He ate with them, shared everything he had with them - even his inmost heart and thoughts. And he spent himself doing good for them. To know Jesus personally is to know God and the love and friendship he offers to each one of us.
One of the special marks of favor shown in the Scriptures is to be called the friend of God. Abraham is called the friend of God (Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23). God spoke with Moses as a man speaks with his friend (Exodus 33:11). Jesus, the Lord and Master, calls the disciples his friends rather than his servants.
What does it mean to be a friend of God? Friendship with God certainly entails a loving relationship which goes beyond mere duty and obedience. Jesus' discourse on friendship and brotherly love echoes the words of Proverbs: A friend loves at all times; and a brother is born for adversity (Proverbs 17:17). The distinctive feature of Jesus' relationship with his disciples was his personal love for them. He loved his own to the end (John 13:1). His love was unconditional and wholly directed to the good of others. His love was also sacrificial. He gave the best he had and all that he had. He gave his very life for those he loved in order to secure for them everlasting life with the Father.
Love to the death
The Lord Jesus gives his followers a new commandment - a new way of love that goes beyond giving only what is required or what we think others might deserve. What is the essence of Jesus' new commandment of love? It is a love to the death - a purifying love that overcomes selfishness, fear, and pride. It is a total giving of oneself for the sake of others - a selfless and self-giving love that is oriented towards putting the welfare of others ahead of myself.
Jesus says that there is no greater proof in love than the sacrifice of one's life for the sake of another. Jesus proved his love by giving his life for us on the cross of Calvary. Through the shedding of his blood for our sake, our sins are not only washed clean, but new life is poured out for us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. We prove our love for God and for one another when we embrace the way of the cross. What is the cross in my life? When my will crosses with God's will, then God's will must be done. Do you know the peace and joy of a life fully surrendered to God and consumed with his love?
The Lord Jesus tells us that he is our friend and he loves us whole-heartedly and unconditionally. He wants us to love one another just as he loves us, whole-heartedly and without reserve. His love fills our hearts and transforms our minds and frees us to give ourselves in loving service to others. If we open our hearts to his love and obey his command to love our neighbor, then we will bear much fruit in our lives, fruit that will last for eternity. Do you wish to be fruitful and to abound in the love of God?
Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Prayer of Ignatius Loyola)
Daily Quote from the Early Church Fathers: Love encompasses the other commandments, by Ephrem the Syrian (306-373 AD
"This is my commandment." Have you then only one precept? This is sufficient, even if it is unique and so great. Nevertheless he also said, "Do not kill" (Matthew 19:18) because the one who loves does not kill. He said, "Do not steal," because the one who loves does even more - he gives. He said, "Do not lie," for the one who loves speaks the truth, against falsehood. "I give you a new commandment" (John 13:14). If you have not understood what "This is my commandment" means, let the apostle be summoned as interpreter and say, "The goal of his commandment is love" (1 Timothy 1:5). What is its binding force? It is that of which [the Lord] spoke, "Whatever you want others to do to you, you should do also" (Matthew 7:12)."Love one another" in accordance with this measure, "as I have loved you." That is not possible, for you are our Lord who loves your servants. But we who are equals, how can we love one another as you have loved us? Nevertheless, he has said it... His love is that he has called us his friends. If we were to give our life for you, would our love be equal to yours?... How then can what he said be explained, "As I have loved you"? "Let us die for each other," he said. As for us, we do not even want to live for one another! "If I, who am your Lord and God, die for you, how much more should you die for one another." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON TATIAN'S DIATESSARON 19.13)
WHO CAN’T TEACH YOU? “As Peter entered, Cornelius went to meet him, dropped to his knees before him and bowed low.” —Acts 10:25. The Holy Spirit wants to teach us all things (Jn 14:26). For example, He wants to teach us how to be parents, wives, husbands, lay single people, and members of religious communities. The Spirit wants to teach us how to spend our money, eat, talk, think, work, love, live, and die. Because the Holy Spirit wants to teach us so much, the proper relationship with Him is to be teachable, that is, docile.
Most of the time the Spirit does not teach us directly but indirectly. He teaches us through people, such as parents, pastors, spouses, brothers, sisters, children, strangers, and even enemies. To be docile means to be able to learn from anyone through whom the Holy Spirit chooses to teach. For example, Cornelius, a powerful Roman centurion, was humbly submissive to the teaching of St. Peter, an uneducated Jewish fisherman (see Acts 10:25ff). The secretary of the treasury of the Ethiopian government asked the simple St. Philip to teach him from the Bible (Acts 8:27ff).
Who do you consider to be the last person in the world to teach you anything? If the Spirit so chooses, are you willing to be taught by him or her? If so, you are docile and ready to receive the Holy Spirit. If not, you are in danger of rejecting the Holy Spirit.
Prayer: Father, teach me about being teachable. “Love, then, consists in this: not that we have loved God but that He has loved us and has sent His Son as an Offering for our sins.” —1 Jn 4:10. King of all the ages, Your ways are perfect and true. Alleluia!
The personal action for today: How have I experienced the love of GOD in my life and particularly through the love shared with me by others? How has loving and being loved challenged me, and not just made me feel “a warm fuzzy”? Who has been the hardest person for me to love? How can I reflect the GOD (Who is Love) to others in my daily existence?
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5 May 2024
6 Sunday of Easter
Fr George Kollamparampil
Homily
John 15:9-17
Sunday Sermon
Year B