Thought for the Week

6th SUNDAY of EASTER Year B 2006

1st Reading: Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48
2nd Reading: 1 John 4:7-10
Gospel Reading John 15:9-17

Homily by Fr. Gavin Gomez

The theme of God’s Love in today’s readings reminds me of an inspired song which I am sure you have heard before. It tells the story about a mother who gives her son a lesson in true love.

The son sees his mother in the kitchen preparing dinner, so, he hands her a note listing all his charges for: mowing the lawn, making his bed, shopping, baby sitting, and all the other household duties he had been asked to do. His cost in total was $14.75

In response his mother took his note, turned it over, and listed all the things she has done for him from the time he was an unborn baby, and against each item she wrote “no charge”. The time and energy she spent doctoring and praying for him, the costs of bringing him up: food, clothes, education, the long hours of worries, late nights, and tears over all those years. The total cost of her love, she wrote, was “no charge”.

Her son was really moved by this so, he looked up at his mum and said “Mum, I sure do love you” and taking the pen he wrote in big letters “PAID IN FULL”.

True love does not count the cost and yet it is a love that desires the highest good for the receiver. This love comes from God as a Gift and God keeps pouring His Love into our hearts so that we will use it by sharing His Love with others.

We have heard in the readings that God does not have any favourites and John the Evangelist says “ … love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God”. To know God is also to “remain” or “dwell” in God’s Love and Jesus tells us that to remain in God Love all we need to do is to follow his commandment of love, love one another as Jesus loved us.

Now, we can love God and others with the same love that Jesus gave us, in other words we are called to participate in the communion of Divine Love that embraces the Holy Trinity – The Father, Son and Holy Spirit and express this love in our own personal lives.

Just as the Father delighted in the Son who expressed the Father’s Divine Love to others, so, Jesus Christ Our Lord delights in us when we express his Divine Love to those in our lives.

When we share our love we are filled with Divine Joy, which we experience metaphysically as sense of “a certain rightness and completeness” about our life, and, our joy in life is never complete until we are filled with the Divine Joy of Our Lord.

If we use the story as a model, the mother in the story is essentially focused on the well-being of her son far more than any monetary cost, or reward. It is truly a self-giving love that will assist her son to grow. Also, the mother loved her son even before he was born, that is, even before her son could understand her love for him, or indeed, before he could return his love to his mother.

Similarly, God has “loved us first” even before we understood love or could love God in return. We can draw great comfort from this Truth because it means that God is truly concerned about our well-being. In fact, God dearly loves us and wants all His Children to receive the “Full Impact” of His Love upon the fulfilment of God’s Plan. This Truth of God loving us first is also revealed in Jesus’ words to his disciples when he says “you did not choose me, no, I chose you”.

There is also a newness in our relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, inviting us to a more deeper and permanent relationship. Now, we are considered friends and not servants because Jesus has revealed to us his intimate relationship with the Father.

Friends, as we already know, share their lives and experiences together, they share their joys and sorrows in life, comfort each other and speak to each other at an intimate level. So, being called into friendship with God is very intimate indeed!

Pope Benedict issued his first encyclical on Christmas Day 2005 on Christian Love “Deus Caritas Est”. The reason for his encyclical on love is to confirm, in the midst of this changing world, that God, is a God of Love, and, as already mentioned, “God lavishes His Love upon us and we in turn are must share this love with others”.

Another important point this encyclical brings out is that ‘we all need to be loved’, therefore, ‘receiving love in return’ is also very important as ‘giving love’. The wholeness of love, therefore, includes Eros “the receiving love in return” and Agape “the self-giving love”, these form two halves of the whole nature of love.

The encyclical also says that God’s Love may be called Eros, that is “receiving love in return”, but yet, it is also, totally Agape, since it is a totally a self-giving love as Jesus died on the Cross to save us all. There is also God’s infinite mercy, compassion and forgiveness to include in this
total self-giving.

Pope Benedict says, “Love is “Divine” because it comes from God and unites us to God” and also he says, “love grows through love”.

So, let us pray that our Lord will help us to remain in the intimacy of His Love.

21st May 2006

Previous Thoughts for the Week
14th May 2006
7th May 2006
30th April 2006
23rd April 2006