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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