If you are looking for a little “light reading” this weekend, try the First Letter of St. John (from the New Testament of the Bible). In it, you will find gems like: “If God loves us so much, we too should love each other.”
We might expect St. John to have said that, if God loves us so much, we should love God back. But no. The real test of whether we are returning God’s love is our passing on that love to our brothers and sisters. Remember, God does not need our love and, in fact, strictly speaking we cannot give to God something He already has in infinite abundance. That is why we respond by passing it on!
Surely, loving each other is hard work and it involves a daily choice to be loving. Do you remember Charlie Brown’s famous remark? “I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand.” But St. John says that, if we can genuinely love the people around us – who are very visible, sometimes uncomfortably so – then God is really present in us through that love and it gradually transforms us.
As we have learned in new ways during this pandemic, love and fear are not meant to co-exist. When we are filled with the love of God, a love which (again) flows out from us towards others, there is nothing we need fear. That is, we have no need to be afraid of God or His judgment (although there may be things, happenings in our life which may generate fear). Fear comes from the threat of punishment but, according to St. John, for the one who is close to God in love, such fear has no meaning.
Take the time to read the First Letter of St. John this weekend and hear again how the Catholic life is about being loving persons, not primarily about orthodoxy or theological expertise, or conformity to rules, or making sacrifices, or carrying out “religious” duties. After all, if we do not have love, we are nothing.
Finally, Jesus hanging on the Cross is the most dramatic sign of God’s love for us, a love that is totally gratuitous (so we call it “grace”) and never earned by any action of ours.
Let us pray.
Oh, Holy Cross of Jesus, be our true light!
Oh, Holy Cross, fill our souls with good desires.
Oh, Holy Cross, ward off from us all things that are evil.
Oh, Holy Cross, ward off from us all dangers and give us everlasting hope!
Oh, Crucified Jesus of Nazareth, out of your great love for us, have mercy on us now and forever. Amen.
