Sixth Sunday of Easter

Title

God is Love

Outline

We live in world that knows little about love

The term is used a lot, but usually it refers to the attraction of one person for another, an attraction rooted in primal drives, social-psychological signals, and human needs coated with romantic language and rationalizations.

The biblical concept of love, which does not depend on the Greek word used, is, as Thomas Aquinas said, seeking the good of the other. In other words, it is about giving to the other, reaching out to the other, and so expanding one’s world rather than turning in on oneself and one’s needs.

And that is what God is, not a characteristic of God or some part of God, but what God is and why God must be Trinity in order to be eternal (always in existence).

1 John puts it thus:

“let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God” - God reaches out for the good of the other, so someone begotten by God, therefore having his nature, does the same.

One cannot know God who is love without expressing this begottenness by loving others, including God.

John puts it:

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12 This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.” One’s joy is complete in loving the other as Jesus’s joy was complete in loving us. The commandment of the Father to the Son is the same as the commandment of the Son to us: love.

Both 1 John and John note that in giving the Son for us and in the Son’s laying down his life for us we experience the love of God. If we are really in that love we then pass it on likewise, laying down our lives for the other (literally or metaphorically) and thus experiencing the love of God more deeply.

This is not de-selfing in which one denies one has a self, but self-giving, in which, fully conscious of who one is one gives one’s self, like a soldier who rushes out to save a comrade, fully conscious that he is himself likely to be killed.

In Acts we see this at work

God is love, so “God shows no partiality” even across human boundaries.

Peter had to learn that by God’s “twisting his arm” to make him cross the Jew-Gentile boundary

Then God confirms it by sending the Holy Spirit upon the Gentiles, showing that he reaches across the boundary and backing up Peter’s actions in the fact of Jewish doubt.

(Interesting mention of speaking in foreign languages - since it is a sign to the Jews, could this not have been Hebrew and Aramaic?)

Peter responds by ordering full-inclusion: baptism, inclusion at the one table. He responds to the love of God by demonstrating that these Gentiles have been born of water and the Spirit and are now part of the same family of love.

These passages challenge us:

As we meditate on the self-giving love of God in Jesus and his self-giving love on the cross, let us ask ourselves a question:

What boundary, social, physical, ethnic, cultural, or emotional might God be calling me to reach across for the good of the other, whatever the cost?

Then we will discover a deeper sense of our own begottenness of God and an intuitive knowledge of God, for we have entered into love directed by God and that is to enter into God.

Readings

Catholic Daily Readings Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B

FIRST READING

Acts 10:25–26, 34–35, 44–48

25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and, falling at his feet, paid him homage. 26 Peter, however, raised him up, saying, “Get up. I myself am also a human being.”

34 Then Peter proceeded to speak and said, “In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. 35 Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.

44 While Peter was still speaking these things, the holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word. 45 The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were astounded that the gift of the holy Spirit should have been poured out on the Gentiles also, 46 for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God. Then Peter responded, 47 “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the holy Spirit even as we have?” 48 He ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

RESPONSE

Psalm 98:2b

2 The LORD has made his victory known;

has revealed his triumph in the sight of the nations,

PSALM

Psalm 98:1–4

1 A psalm.

Sing a new song to the LORD,

for he has done marvelous deeds.

His right hand and holy arm

have won the victory.

2 The LORD has made his victory known;

has revealed his triumph in the sight of the nations,

3 He has remembered his mercy and faithfulness

toward the house of Israel.

All the ends of the earth have seen

the victory of our God.

4 Shout with joy to the LORD, all the earth;

break into song; sing praise.

SECOND READING

1 John 4:7–10

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. 8 Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. 10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

John 14:23

23 Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.

GOSPEL

John 15:9–17

9 As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12 This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. 16 It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. 17 This I command you: love one another.

Notes

White