True love has a universal scope

THIS is what we can get from the readings of the Mass on the 6th Sunday of Easter, Year B. (cfr. Acts 10,25-26.34-35.44-48; 1Jn 4,7-10; Jn 15,9-17) The true love that can only come and is a sharing of the love God has, will always have a universal scope, irrespective of how we are. 

 In the first reading, we hear Peter saying that “God is no respecter of persons.” We have to understand that expression correctly, because the first impression we might get from it is that God does not respect, and therefore, does not love persons. On the contrary, what it means, as Peter later clarified, is that “in every nation, he who fears him (God), and works justice, is acceptable to him. 

 In other words, God does not discriminate against anyone. The only condition that would enable us to share that universal kind of love that God has is when we believe him and follow his will and ways. That’s what is meant when Peter said, “he who fears him and works justice, is acceptable to him. 

 The second reading from the First Letter of St. John reinforces the same idea when it exhorts us “to love one another, for charity is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God and knows God.” And we are enabled to love one another because God “has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him.” 

 And with Christ, we are given all the means and the power to love one another. In other words, we can learn to love one another because God through Christ has loved us first. In fact, Christ goes to the extent of offering himself completely to us so we can love the way he loves all. 

 The gospel reading rounds it off by clearly telling us how we can have this kind of love. “As the Father has loved me,” Christ said, “I also have loved you. Abide in my love.” And he continues, further clarifying what is involved in this kind of love. “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; as I also have kept my Father’s commandments, and do abide in his love.” 

 Clearly, the secret to be able to have this universal scope of love is to follow Christ, to obey the commandments of God. This truth of our faith should always be in our mind and heart, keeping and nourishing it by frequent meditations on it and endlessly developing the appropriate attitudes and virtues. 

 We have to learn how to transcend the limitations of the many human and worldly conditionings that we are subject to. While this will always require tremendous effort and discipline, there is no doubt that we can hack it since we also have a spiritual nature that can go beyond these limitations and that can accept God’s grace that would enable us to enter into the supernatural life, nature and power of God. 

 In short, we need to feel the need to develop a heart like that of Christ, a heart that welcomes and accommodates everyone, irrespective of how they are. It is a universal heart that is concerned only with the salvation of everyone. 

 We may have severe differences among ourselves in the different aspects of our life, but we just have to reach out to everyone if we want to be like Christ as we should.

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”

THESE words of Christ were addressed to Philip, the apostle, who asked Christ to show him the Father after Christ said that he was “the way, the truth and the life” and that no one can go to the Father except through Christ. (cfr. Jn 14,6,8) 

 We can easily understand the perplexity of Philip. But this particular part of the gospel precisely clarifies who Christ really is—and that is that he is truly the Son of God who became man, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, and that with the Father and the Holy Spirit, he is the very one God there is. 

 This is very important and most basic truth of faith for which we should develop the strongest conviction and which we have to spread and explain as widely and abidingly as possible. We cannot deny that many people, even those who claim to be Catholics and Christians, who actually do not know who Christ is. 

 For some, Christ is neither God nor man, or that he is a special, unique being. There are others who claim he is only God and not man. And others who say the opposite—that he is only man and not God. There is even one so-called religious leader who managed to get a good following of people and who claim to be the very son of God to whom everybody should go for their salvation. 

 There is a great need for a systematic catechesis to proclaim the truth about Christ. We have to encourage everyone to really know Christ by reading and meditating on the gospel where his life, teachings and deeds are recorded. We have to explain with gift of tongues why Christ has to be the center and focus of our life. Also, that Christ makes himself available to us to the extent that he makes himself the Bread of Life which he commands us to eat if we want to gain eternal life. 

 That Christ is both God and man, “perfectus Deus, perfectus homo,” can only validate the Christian truth that man is meant to share in the very life and nature of God. Not only that, that we are actually patterned after Christ. 

 In short, how God is should also be how we ought to be. It’s a most basic truth about ourselves that we should never take for granted. On that truth depend all the other things in our life. 

 The necessary corollary to this truth is that we should try our best, with God’s grace, of course, to be like Christ who precisely offers us “the truth, the way and the life.” The way to be like God is to identify ourselves as perfectly as possible with Christ. We have to try our best to assume the very identity of Christ. 

 There’s no doubt about it. We are meant to assume the identity of Christ, because he is the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity. We can only be as we ought to be when we assume Christ’s identity. That is to say, when Christ and us become one. 

 Let’s remember his ardent prayer before he entered into his passion and death was that we be one with him and he is one with his Father. “…that all of them may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us…that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity…” (Jn 17,21.23) 

 We need to process this tremendous truth of our faith slowly.

What is true love?

AS early as possible, we should be clear about what true love is. At the moment, we don’t have to look far to see how love is understood and lived wrongly by a great majority of the people around. 

 To many, love is just a matter of liking somebody. It’s a love that is based and anchored mainly on feelings, looks, appearances. In some classification of love, this kind of love is termed as “eros,” meaning you love someone because you like something in that person or that you can get or gain something from that person. 

 Others understand love as sharing things in common with another person. This is called “filia.” It obviously is a kind of love, but still not quite perfect, since in the face of the unavoidable differences and conflicts among ourselves, this love cannot survive. 

 The real love is what is called as “agape,” where you love a person irrespective of whether you get or gain something or not from that person, or whether you share some common things with that person or not. This love continues even when it is unreciprocated, rejected and contradicted. 

 This is the kind of love Christ himself showed us and continues to show us. Not only that, he commands us to have this kind of love. Remember him telling us, “love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 13,34) 

 It is the love that flows from and is a sharing of the love of God who precisely has love as his very essence. In the gospel of the Mass on Thursday of the 5th Week of Easter, Christ practically defined what true love is. 

 “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love,” Christ said. “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.” (Jn 15,9-10) 

 We should therefore have no doubt as what true love is. It is in following the commandments of God, in doing his will, since after all we have been created in his image and likeness. How God is, as shown in Christ, is how we should be. 

 This love that comes from God through Christ in the Holy Spirit will always be in the truth, will always be consistent irrespective of our varying and changing conditions and circumstances, will always know how to adapt itself to different situations without getting lost. 

 As St. Paul would put it, “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…” (1 Cor 13,4-8) 

 We have to learn to give all our heart to God by exercising those gifts God himself has given us so we can share in his life and love, i.e., the theological gifts of faith, hope and charity. We need time and effort to do this. 

 And given our human condition now, it is a love that knows how to do spiritual battle against the enemies of God and love. It knows how to renew itself always and to go through the lifelong process of having to begin and begin again. Things would always appear new to us even if we handle the same things everyday.