by Fr. Jose “Joesum” Sumampong, Jr.
May 9, 2021
Sixth Sunday of Easter (B)
Acts 10: 25-26, 34-35, 44-48 / Psalm 98: 1-4 /
1 John 4: 7-10 / John 15 : 9 -17
GOD’S LOVE
Word: This beautiful page of the gospel of St. John is a Hymn of Love. The word “love” or “friend” is repeated eleven times in relation with the word “commandment”. For Jesus, the joy of the Beloved is to do the will of the One who loves him.
We cannot but be struck by the dynamism which flows through this passage. One biblical scholar pictures it as “a kind of interior dance, concentric leitmotifs that appear, disappear and come back, waves breaking upon one another, a waterfall which comes down from God and goes back up to its Source.”
At the core of all this is joy.
This gospel is said by Jesus on the eve of his “departure”. He said, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love” (Jn 15: 9). For Jesus, everything begins in the secret of God, in the invisible depth that is “the Source” of everything. In God, there is no solitude, no sadness. There is only the Joy of a Love lived among three Persons who love one another unceasingly. God is Love!
This invisible Love one day became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. The Mystery of Divine Love became recognizable, visible and touchable. It made the human heart beat: “The Father loves Me.”
And now, in this man Jesus, the dynamism of Love begins to spread over mankind. God, in Jesus Christ, shares His Love.
For many of us, the dynamism of love stops at a solidarity among brothers and sisters. Couples must love each other, families must love one another, nations must love one another. In this sense, the speak of the “horizontality” of love. The human universe is reduced to the earthly horizon.
Jesus proclaimed, “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 15:10). For Jesus, obviously a double “verticality” goes through man, that is, love comes to us from on high, from God—and it is meant to go back on high, to God.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete” (Jn 15:11). The joy of Jesus is to be loved, loved by the Father, and also to love his brothers and sisters; and it is to recognize the Father and love Him!
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Order: The great and divine stream of Love never stops. Someone puts it this way: “When reaching the ground, the living water of the great Cascade splashes, spreads out, springs up again…Loved by God, humanity must, in their turn, become themselves “love”, in the image of His Love.”
Firstly, this Sunday’s gospel is challenging to love to the extent of laying down our life. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). The measure of love is to give without measure. The measure of love is the Cross.
Secondly, this gospel is also challenging us to be friends. Jesus dares to say that He is doing away with the distinction between “master” and “servant”, between “God” and “man”; rather Jesus speaks of being friends, with nothing hidden from one another. “You are my friends if you do what I command you. 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” (Jn 15:14-15).
Yes, love refuses to dominate over the other, tends to respect the other and make him or her the equal of self. We too know, through our experience of human loves, that two persons who love each other tend to become transparent to each other: love is communication, community and communion.
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Realities: 1. Years ago there was born to wealthy parents in New York City a little boy who had poor eye-sight, and whose health was so weak that he could not even attend school like other children. Neither could he join in their games. He wanted especially to play football, but that was out of the question.
One day when he had begged with special pleading to be allowed to join in some of the rough games of other boys, he was told again that his health would not permit it. It was then that he declared, “I am going to be strong, no matter what the doctor says, I will exercise this weak body until I become an athlete.”
And exercise he did, slowly at first, but with increasing effort and success, despite early discouragement. When he was a young man, he went out West and lived the rough and rugged life of a rancher, spending several hours a day in the saddle. So respected and loved was he by the other cowboys that they joined his cavalry regiment in the Spanish American war; it became famous as the “Rough Riders.”
That man was the 26th president of the U.S.: Theodore Roosevelt. (Tonne, Determination)
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2. One of Mrs Donald Lowe’s treasured possessions is a poem written by her 14-year-old granddaughter Heidi after the girl had lived for three months with Mrs Lowe and her husband in Massachusetts. “I wrote this for you,” Heidi told her grandmother, and concluded her poem with these lines: “Love needs time But most of all, love needs you. For without you There is no time or love.” (Christophers, Love)
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3. One week-end while barnstorming airplane rides, my pilot husband took up a farmer for a 3D-minutes sight-seeing flight. Not a word was spoken during the whole time as they both looked down on the incredibly beautiful summer countryside.
Climbing out of the plane afterward, the man turned to my husband and drawled, “Now I know why the Lord has so much patience with this old world. He has a better view of it than we got.” (Mrs. R. L. Weekes, God’s View)
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4. Nine years ago, a young military officer, a PMAer, Bonifacio Halasan, Jr, was pierced in his heart by a sniper’s bullet while leading a clearing operation after an armed encounter with rebels’ group in Bukidnon. This promising young Boholano, military officer, and a friend of mine was dead. My first reaction upon hearing the news was to cry—to cry for someone who could have lived long and be of service to the Filipino nation. But after awhile, I felt comforted by this thought; that his death was a death of hero, a victorious death. For truly that is what it means “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. One’s precious life is laid down so that all Filipinos can be friends.
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Direction: O Loving Lord, you love yourself in yourself when from the Father and the Son there proceeds the Holy Spirit, the love of the Father for the Son and of the Son for the Father. So sublime is this love that it is a unity, and so profound is this unity that Father and the Son have one substance. And you love yourself in us when the Spirit of your Son is sent into our hearts . . . and you enable us to love you out of love. Even more, you love yourself in us in order that we might hope in you and cherish your name. . . . We love you, or better, you love yourself in us—we with affection and you with efficacity—making us one with your own unity, that is, by your Spirit given us. Adorable, Awe-inspiring, and Blessed Spirit-loving Lord, give him to us! Send forth your Spirit and all shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. (Prayer to God Who Loves Himself in Us, William of Saint-Thierry <1085-1148> Abbot and Spiritual Writer)
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To all Mothers… Blessed Mothers’ Day To You…You are all God’s Gifts to us, your grateful Children… We love You!