All this week, this last week of the Christmas season, we have been hearing readings from the first letter of John. One of the main topics of this letter is love, which we’ve been hearing about all this week. Today, we are told that we cannot say that we love God if we do not love our brothers and sisters. The letter does not say that we love our brothers and sisters when it is convenient or easy, just that we are to love our brothers and sisters. It also says that this love is not meant to be burdensome. We know that is not always so easy, that sometimes we need to grow into this love and forgiveness, to pray for it and meditate over it and to ask God’s grace to help us when it is difficult to do. We also hear from the Gospel, as Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah that “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” Perhaps this is the key to loving as God loves us, to rely on his Spirit to help us to love, to help us to grow in this love. Like Jesus, we are to bring his Good News to all, to bring glad tidings to the poor and the oppressed. And the Spirit will lead us in doing this. It is something we cannot do on our own.
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