Sunday 6 Easter
(B-2006): Waters of the Universe
1 Jn 4:7-10; Jn
15: 9-17
The resurrection of Jesus is about the victory of divine love in history
and in the world. We cannot yet see it, but it will have the last word.
Existence is in the end about divine love because,
for God, to exist is to love and to love is to exist.
For humankind, made in God’s image and likeness,
it can, in the end, be no different.
Without the gift
of the love of Jesus, we will never be able to love as we were meant to love, that is, we will not live eternally. With that
gift, we will indeed love in truth, that is, we will truly live: the victory of the resurrection will also be ours.
That is why, in these days and weeks of Easter,
so many of our readings are taken from the evangelist of divine love, St. John. He is teaching us what risen life consists of
– being loved and loving with the love of Jesus.
Even though we are not yet dead, the pledge of
that risen life has been given to us in baptism; we nourish it every time we receive absolution or holy communion. We live
the resurrection whenever we love as Jesus loves.
But we hear so much talk about love, in church, in cinema, in song. We may conclude, and not mistakenly, that talk is cheap.
Why does talk of love turn us off?
Perhaps someone does not really understand what
true love is, because they have never experienced it. I might resist talk of love because I fear it, or am embittered because
I never knew it.
Or again, I thought I knew the meaning of love
until I was betrayed or rejected by the very one I thought loved me. Resentment has now withdrawn me from the “love
game.”
Finally, I may reject talk of love because I have
no intention of paying its price: I am too in love with myself.
All of these, and many more, reasons are understandable,
but truly sad, and the last one mentioned is the saddest of all.
Yet none of them is reasonable or responsible.
They are not reasonable because reason itself
and faith tell us that our lives will only find fulfillment in true love and in the eternal life it imparts.
They are not responsible, because it is our duty
as human beings and Christians to do everything in our power to attain to that fulfillment.
Because we
have been hurt in love does not mean that love is at an end, unless, that is, we want to reduce love to our terms.
If I were to say to you, “the church teaches
that there are three persons in God, but I don’t like that, so for me there are only gong to be two,” you would
laugh at me and reply, “there are three and that’s it.”
If the doctrine of the faith on the Trinity is
so clear, why is the doctrine of the faith on love so “up for grabs”?
Pope Benedict has written his first, and very
beautiful, encyclical on that doctrine of love precisely because we human beings are each inclined to invent our own “love
doctrine”, on the basis of nothing other than our feelings, our likes and dislikes, our broken human experience.
Reflect for a moment with me on what St. John says about love in today’s second reading and Gospel.
First, love is of God.
If God cannot be at the core of a relationship,
if any aspect of a relationship is not compatible with God, then true love is not in it, no matter what we may feel or say.
“Where true love is dwelling, God is dwelling
there.”
How does God love? To understand this is essential if we are not to live distorted
forms of love in our relationships.
Jesus says, “As the Father loves me, so I love you.” Jesus
himself is saying that the way he loves us is but an imitation of the way he has experienced the Father’s love for him.
So, if Jesus loves us by “laying down his
life”, this must mean that the Father has somehow “lain down his life for Jesus.”
What can this possibly mean?
Imagine a huge dam containing all the waters of
the universe. Think of the gates of that damn bursting open and all that water emptying out.
This poor image is a way of trying to understand
how the Father pours out his entire being as sheer and utter gift to his Son.
The Father’s way of loving is the total gift of himself.
In return, the Son pours himself out as total
gift to the Father.
Our faith also teaches us that this exchange of
gifts is so complete, so perfect that it gives rise to the Holy Spirit.
Total gift becomes total Gift: the Spirit is the personified Gift of God. The Father gives the Spirit to the Son and the Son
gives him to the Father.
This is what we mean when we say in the creed,
“we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds
(“bursting dam”) from the Father and
the Son.”
But this sublime exchange of life and love within
the Trinity does not stay there. The Trinity is not a private relationship.
At the Father’s bidding, the Son pours out
that mighty dam like a waterfall upon humankind. First, in the creation itself; then in the incarnation, which finds its perfection
in the Son’s laying down, “pouring out”, his life for us in his saving death.
Remember, there is “no greater love”
than this “laying down.” And since the one who does the laying down is the Son of God, then in this act of dying
he actually communicates to us “the total Gift”, the Holy Spirit. Christ’s death thus becomes the vehicle
by which he gives us his Spirit, and the eternal life and love which the Spirit is.
That is why all the sacraments, which communicate
the Holy Spirit to us, are rooted in the death of the Lord.
And since the Spirit is that infinite outpouring
of the waters of divine love and divine life, then it means (and hold your breath at this!) that we mortal human beings become
the carriers even in our flesh of the
divine life and love of the Trinity. We therefore become capable of loving as God
loves, because we become capable of loving with the love of God in person, that is, the Holy Spirit.
No wonder, then, Christ’s joy can be in
us completely!
No wonder he can command us to love one another in this total, self-giving way!
No wonder we must jealously conserve the Spirit
in our hearts, mind and flesh by avoiding sin, confessing sin, forgiving the sins of those who sin against us.
No wonder we can, if we truly wish it and work
at it, overcome even the greatest hurts of human beings.
For if God is with us, who, pray who, can really be against us?
The sufferings of this life, no matter how painful
and deep, are ultimately nothing in comparison with the true love of God made visible in the risen Christ and poured into
our hearts by his Holy Spirit.
If, then, our love is true, it will, in imitation
of Christ, be a gift of one’s very self, a self-surrendering, self-sacrificing gift, which seeks nothing in return except
the joy of knowing that it has given itself.
This is not idealism! It is our truest identity,
our mission and our destiny.
And, at the final resurrection of all the dead,
it will be our glory within the embrace of the Triune God.
Msgr. Peter Magee
Sunday, May 21st, 2006
Annunciation, DC: 5.30 pm Vigil
& 11.30 am
