Sunday readings in brief 6 Easter B
Acts 10:25-48; Ps 98; 1 Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15:9-17
The Language that Everyone Understands is Love
Dear friends, today is the sixth Sunday of Easter and next Sunday will be the feast of the Ascension of our Lord. Soon the Easter season will be over. I hope that you have profited enough from this liturgical season. For the last two weeks, we have been reading about love, especially from the Gospel and the epistles of St. John. Jesus has exhaustively explained to us that there is no other way to remain in him except by loving God and Neighbour.
Love is a very precious thing that everyone would want to possess as much of it as possible. The challenge we all have is that we mistake many things for love. Jesus does not want us to be confused about what the love he is talking about is like. He gives us an example of the love that the Father has for him and the one that he has for us. The kind of love that sacrifices all for the beloved. Unfortunately, many people have found themselves in a lot of misery in the name of love. One good example is of the many married couples who thought that what they felt for each other was love that led them to even contract marriage. However, the life many of them are living now has not even the smallest traces of love in it. Many young people have mistaken passion for intimacy and sexual relationships, which is typical of their age, for love. After the girl becomes pregnant the boy abandons her and goes to look for another. The poor girl’s dreams are shattered by her unwanted motherhood. They have no one to journey with them during this critical period in their growth.
St. Peter in the first reading is confessing about his discovery, that the love of God is all-inclusive, or in other words, the Good News of love that Jesus brought to us does not have any boundaries. He says, “I have come to realize in truth that God has no favourite, but anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). The Jews believed that the messiah was exclusive to Jews only. This is why they were annoyed with Jesus because he mingled with the Gentiles (non-Jews).
At the beginning of my priestly ministry, I was privileged to work in a senior (A-Level) Girls’ Secondary School as a Spiritual Director and a Counsellor. At first, I began with only the Catholic Students but soon students from other Christian and non-Christian faiths began to come for the sessions. Later the School Administration asked me to be the counsellor to all the girls. I had open sessions for all on Wednesdays and individual sessions on Fridays. On Sundays, I had Mass for the Catholic students, but other students also attended. I had to be very careful not to make any of them feel excluded. I enjoyed the all-inclusive community we had built full of spirit and love. I began to appreciate in this way the fact that the Gospel that Jesus left to us was not meant to exclude anyone. It is a message that must unite all of God’s children and not divide them.
Today many of them are great women making great contributions to society and are still in touch with me. Some are reading this reflection, and I am sure they are smiling a nodding in concurrence.
I can confess that this experience expanded my understanding of the Gospel in a way that I had not known in all my twelve years in the seminary. Listening to their stories, struggles, and fears, I realized that the majority of the challenges that people have especially the youth are very closely tied to their social-spiritual backgrounds. Unless one understands this background, no amount of counseling sessions, whether psychological or spiritual may be of any help to them. This discovery made me go back to research other faiths to better equip myself. In short, I realized that I was of more help to the girls when I was able to relate to their faith backgrounds without judging. Of course, most of them had not chosen to belong to the denomination or religion they were, it was simply because they were born into them.
The war between religions and their different denominations has been going on for a long time in different parts of the world. Even within the Christian Churches, we have fierce negative competition about whose manner of worship or liturgy is better than the other. You often hear preachers criticize other denominations instead of preaching the word of God. This is what I refer to as “spiritual pettiness” and it leads to mutual exclusivity between people of different religions and denominations. Human spirituality in my opinion controls more than three-quarters of how a person understands the world – his or her Cosmo vision and attitudes towards others. Spirituality is more than belonging to this or that creed. Belief is part of human culture. What I believe determines how I understand life and the people around me. However, as St. Joseph Freinademetz said, “The only language that everyone understands is love”. Christian message can be summarized as love for God and neighbour despite what that neighbour believes or doesn’t believe.
I am submitting to us that we have a lot to learn about the love that Jesus is asking us to practice today. The love that encompasses all aspects of our life. Love for God and neighbour does not segregate or exclude any person or group of persons because of what they believe, where they come from, or how they practice their faith. It is to love as God loves that is manifested through Jesus Christ to us. All of us, white, black, Christians, Muslims, etc., have red blood in our veins. St. John tells us that “Love is of God and everyone who loves is of born of God knows God” (1 Jn 4:7-10). Do you harbour discriminatory sentiments towards others of a different faith?
Dear friends, my invitation today is for us to evaluate the way we treat others and see if we have excluded anyone. If yes then our love is not from God, it is simply our love that we have crafted for our own interests. If we want our love to be universal like that of God in Christ Jesus, then we must love as God loves.
Have a blessed Sunday.
Fr. Lawrence Muthee, SVD
