It is wonderful how the Holy Spirit chooses wonderful Gospel readings for our Masses that speak so profoundly to us in the reality of our lives. The last two Sundays, we had readings about Jesus as the Good Shepherd and Jesus as the vine to which we are connected as the branches. These two readings led up to the celebration of first holy communion with the children of our parish, which was so wonderful. Today, as we celebrate Mothers Day, our readings center on love. What a wonderful theme of faith for us to look at today as we celebrate and honor our mothers and grandmothers.
Our reading from the first letter of John states that God is love, that God the Father sent his son into the world out of love, so that we might have life through him. Indeed, our life is to be centered on love of God. God’s love is to infuse our very being. Our Christian faith gives all human beings a vision of how our lives should be lived to the fullest. In fact, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Bishop and Early Church Father born in the early second century, once famously said: “The glory of God is man fully alive.” A person is only fully alive when he is motivated by love, because this most fully reflects God, who is love.
So, what are our readings talking about when they talk about love, since there are very different visions of love in our world today? In our society, we have romantic love, a friendship form of love, and an undemanding submissive form of love, to name a few. Those are three forms of love that C. S. Lewis mentions in his book The Four Loves. Agape love is the kind of love that is addressed in our Scripture readings today. Agape love reaches out to others in love without expecting anything in return. Agape love is the type of love God has for creation. God’s love flows out in abundance to every creature and continues to flow whether or not God receives a response from that creature or not. In the Gospel, Jesus calls us to the same agape love, to love one another as he loves us, to remain in his love so that his joy may be in us and that our joy may be complete. In agape love, we selflessly seek the higher good of the other person. Agape love does not come out of our feelings, our emotions, our familiarity or our attraction, but rather out of our will and out of our being. It is a choice we make. And we cannot fool ourselves that Agape love is going to be easy: Agape love requires commitment, faithfulness, and sacrifice. Only through agape love will we be able to love our enemies and reconcile broken relationships. Through agape love, we can reform and change and be healed from hatred and negativity. As we celebrate Mother’s Day today and celebrate May as the Mother of Mary, we have Mary as such a wonder example of agape love, as when the Angel of the Lord comes to visit her, when she is in danger and she does not understand what is happening, she is still able to say, “May it be done to me according to your word,” adhering to the will of God in her life.” Mary does not bring focus or accolades or honor to herself, but always points us in the direction of her son. And when Mary does not understand what is going on in her life and the life of her son, she reflects and prays, pondering things in her heart out of patience, charity and love. I bet all of us can think of ways that our mothers and grandmothers have shown us this agape love in our own lives, putting our interests above their interests and making sacrifices for us out of love.
Jesus calls us to love one another out of agape love, to aspire to the ideal in which the greatest love is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. But we know that in practice, agape love is not easy. Through patience, we learn to love others unconditionally. Unfortunately, so much in our modern world would see agape love differently than our faith does, to see agape love as foolishness or weakness. Yes, we learn through Jesus in the depths of our human nature, knowing that it is more fully human to reach out to others in agape love than to lash out in anger or frustration or pride. Yet, so many in our world today do not know how to practice the forgiveness, reconciliation, and patience of agape love.
We have learned a lot during this past year of the pandemic, haven’t we? Perhaps we have learned to not take our faith for granted, to realize that we need to be proactive, creative, and innovative in the ways we live out our faith. Perhaps we’ve learned to appreciate our Christian community on a more profound level, since we were not able to meet as often as we had previously. Perhaps Jesus’ instruction on love hits home to us during the reality of the pandemic as well. Like our Gospel last Sunday about the vine and the branches, today’s Gospel is a part of a discourse Jesus gives after his Last Supper with his disciples before his death and resurrection. Through his words and his actions, Jesus gives us the greatest example of the kind of love and service to which he calls us. Jesus calls us to love, action, and service, to do as he commands us. Jesus lays down his life for his friends, for his disciples, for all of us. Through the salvation we receive through Christ’s death and resurrection, we receive the grace to love others as Jesus has commanded us.
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