Fr. Kevin
Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48; 1 John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17
During this Easter Season Fr. Gary and I will be baptizing 15 babies. Each of these children, whose ages are still measured in weeks and months are already loved. They did not earn the love. That is the way we all start out. By an act of love we come into being and on the day of our birth our mother and father immediately love us.
At the beginning of our life we were not aware of this love. All we were aware of is when our belly was empty and our diaper was full. But we soon began to recognize certain people; our mother and father, our brothers and sisters, and other significant people. After a while we began to know the difference between strangers and “loved ones” and so we turned more and more to our loved ones. When we scraped our knee or bumped our head we ran to our parents so that they could hold us and tell us everything would be alright. We finally came to know what it meant to be loved. Then we could say that we were loved unconditionally.
But as we grew older, and began having a will of our own, we began to do things that hurt others. When we did something wrong, we were punished for that wrong, and so we learned to make amends for the bad things we do. Along with this we also got the notion that since we have to earn forgiveness we also must have to earn love. Whether this type of thinking is right or wrong we still learned it and began to apply this to all of our human love.
That is the way human love is. Because we are human we are limited. We are imperfect, and so our love is imperfect. Our love is conditional and oftentimes human love has strings attached to it.
Since this is how we understand human love, we have the tendency to understand God’s love in this way. Somewhere along the line we came up with the mistaken notion that we had to earn God’s love. And so we began to keep track of the number of times we prayed the rosary, the number of times we went to Mass, the number of good things that we did for our neighbor. By keeping track of these things, we hoped that God kept track of them also, and one day, if God was willing, we would earn our way into heaven. We could never be further from the truth.
God’s love cannot be earned. God’s love does not need to be earned. It is already there for our taking. God’s love is like the love our newly baptized are experiencing right now. We cannot earn it. We can do nothing to deserve it. It is simply there for our benefit. All we can, and need to, do is to accept it. Because God love’s us, all he asks of us is to accept it and share it with one another:
“Love one another, as I have loved you.”
How does God love us? God loves us first of by choosing to create us, in his own image. God thought of us, and so we were created by an act of love. But that wasn’t enough, for God chose to become one like us, and so he sent his only beloved Son Jesus into our world to be like us in every way but sin. And that still wasn’t enough, for God gave up his only Son to us to die on a cross. Parents, by nature love their children. Even so, I don’t think that parents would be willing to give up their children for the sake of others. If parents had to choose between their child’s life and ours, I am sure they would choose their child. But God gave up his Son, Jesus, totally, unconditionally, unselfishly, so that we would have eternal life. What a tremendous act of love.
And still that is not enough. God loves us so much that he commands us to love one another in the same way. God commands us to lay down our lives for one another. God does this because God knows that it is in giving of ourselves, unconditionally, and unselfishly, that we will come to know God the most deeply. Just as the cross is a symbol of suffering and love, so too is our suffering a symbol of the love we can have for one another.
Suffering melds us together as humans because all humans suffer at some time in their life. When we are alone and lonely, we suffer with the prisoner in solitary confinement. When we are away from home and homesick we suffer with the many men, women, and children who have no homes. Our wants and desires are pale shadows of starvation in Africa. Our crimes against sexuality, harassment, exploitation, and abuse, are echoes of the women who are raped in war torn lands. Our pain, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, is part of God’s suffering over the agony of his people. When we suffer we can know also that others suffer and that God suffers with us. And so our suffering can be an act of love for other people.
Our coming together here, to celebrate the Eucharist, is a gesture of love, an act of love. More than anywhere else, it is here that we ought to be united. It is here that we are united with Catholics and Christians throughout the entire world. In our worship, we are united as one body in Christ. When we gather for the Eucharist Jesus constantly calls each and every one of us to “love one another . . . love one another.” My brothers and sisters let us
“love one another, as God has loved us.”
