Today’s Gospel reading is a continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel.
Jesus said: "Whoever remains in Me, and I in him will bear much fruit ... by this - is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become My disciples" (Jn. 15:5,8).
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus gives us the formula for bearing much fruit –
“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn. 15:12-13).
It comes down to this: Obedience to God’s great commandment of love.
The word “love” has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words and people attach quite different meanings on the word love.
As we heard in the readings today, for St. John - true love is found not in the way humans usually love but in the way God loves.
To truly love is to give ourselves to what we love, to give ourselves to the people we love. Loving means more than being kind, more than being nice, more than being compassionate. Loving means giving one’s self. On the cross Christ - gave himself to the world - - utterly, completely… He emptied Himself.
That is why Jesus commanded: Love one another as I love you – “As the Father loves me, so I also love you” – and this commandment is much greater than – love others as you love yourself…
People often love because they want to receive something back, even as simple as simply feeling good in the other’s company. Often, before people love they ask themselves, “What is in it for me?”
I will be nice to you if you will be nice to me… I will be kind to you so that you will be kind and nice to me…I like you because you like me… because you say nice things about me and you do things for me… See, how selfish those sound!
The love of God is unconditional – has no boundaries – no limits – God’s love is constant and trustworthy.
Love is not just a commandment of God, love is not only what God does - Love is God Himself… God is love…. Where love is, God is.
We were created in the image and likeness of God who is love and so our very nature is to love… and that sums up the meaning and purpose of our life … to love.
There is one Tagalog song that captures this profound realization and it goes: “Kung hindi ako nagmamahal, sino ako?” – translated: “If I do not love, who am I?” “If I do not love, what am I?”
True love is more than a fleeting emotion towards other people. Jesus did not say, “love each other if you feel like it.” Love is a matter of the will. Love is not a feeling. To love is a choice. To love is a daily choice.
St. Theresa of Calcutta was often asked why she spent so much time and energy helping people who were going to die anyway, and most of them not even Christian. Her answer was that she had no choice. She was a Christian, committed to serving Jesus, because Jesus identified with the poorest of the poor.
Parents respond to their baby’s cries in the middle of the night… Not because they feel like it. They have no choice if they really love their child… and that choice takes sacrifice.
A teenager listens to a friend’s story of family difficulties because his friend needs an ear that understands. The teenager would much rather be listening to music, or playing video games, but has no choice but to be present for the suffering friend. Christianity demands it.
A retiree spends a few hours each day with an elderly neighbor. He’d rather be fishing or golfing, but he has no choice but to visit Christ’s presence in the homebound.
Our parish volunteers and ministers: They would rather be safe and comfortable at home with their families but the love of Christ calls them to serve and they chose to respond.
And on and on. Millions of little routine daily sacrifices - that make the greatest life there ever was - a reality in our world.
Love is sacrificial. When we look at the cross, we realize the life that we have been chosen to lead. We have been chosen to make Jesus’ life a reality. Jesus wants to live His life in us.
Jesus said in the Gospel: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit…” It is a gift to be chosen by Jesus and be His friends.
We have been chosen for a mission. We can choose every day to respond to the gift of His friendship by trying to follow His footsteps.
You may not have heard the story of Princess Alice, the second daughter of Queen Victoria of England (1837-1901). The princess married and had a child, a baby boy. When the child was four he came down with a terrible disease at the time called black diphtheria. It was highly contagious. There was no cure and no hope. The doctors and nurses told the princess that she had to stay away from her son. Her own health was frail.
One day as she stood at the door of her little boy’s room, she heard him whispering to a nurse, “Why doesn’t my Mommy hold me and kiss me anymore?” That was more than Princess Alice could bear. She then did what any loving mother would do. She ran to her son’s bed, hugged him and kissed him. She had no choice. She had to show her love. He needed her. Within weeks she came down with the sickness. Both mother and child were buried together.
There is an old Jewish proverb that goes, “God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.” Mothers are the embodiment of God’s love.
A mother’s love is unconditional. Our mothers love us whether we are beautiful or ugly, smart or dull, able-bodied or handicapped; whether a success or a failure in society, whether we are grateful or ungrateful.
All these qualities of a mother’s love are for us a foretaste of God’s tender and untiring love for us. And this is what we are celebrating today.
We are celebrating mothers because through their hands God cares for us when we are in need; through their mouths God speaks to us words of consolation when we are heartbroken; through our mother’s heart God pours out to us his unconditional love that never gives up on us.
Today we acknowledge and appreciate them and we say, “God bless you mothers.”
Of course, we cannot and should not forget spiritual mothers and the fact that there are women who cannot be mothers – because of one reason or another… but they are so motherly in their own way.
Happy Mothers’ Day!
