Saturday, May 9, 2015

Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter

Tina Turner once asked the lyrical question: "what's love got to do with it"?  Let's see if we can answer her question today.  Love, she goes on to say, is a second hand emotion.  Tina is confused.  Let's try and help her out.  Maybe she should have listened to the Beatles who once sung: "all you need is love, love is all you need". 

At some level, in some way, at sometime, all of us have experienced love.  Love, we must be reminded from time to time, is not just romance.  Love, in fact, is a many splendored thing.  Today, when we think about love, our thoughts turn to momma.  No matter what our personal circumstance may be, all of us have experienced the love of a mom or a mother-figure.  For me I had it all; a mom who loved me, a grandmother and aunt who loved me through difficult family realities and then to witness the profound love of a wife, who dearly loves her children and grandchildren and me.  To all moms, and those who serve in roles of motherhood, Happy Mother's Day.

So now I return to Tina Turner's question; what's love got to do with it?  The answer dear Tina is EVERYTHING!!  Why?  Because as people of faith, we know that God is Love!!

In today's second reading and the Gospel, we have the words recorded by the Apostle of Love, Saint John the Evangelist.  Today we heard the word love seventeen times.  In both of today's readings we clearly heard love one another.  This is how Jesus tells us to love one another: "this I command you, to love one another"!  This is not a casual suggestion or a personal opinion, this is a commandment from God in the person of Jesus Christ: "love one another".  Now Jesus did not offer mere words or lip service; no he reminds us how much He loves: "greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends".  Jesus loved us with His very life.  And who are His friends?  We are His friends, IF we do what He commands.  He just told us that.  He just commanded us to love one another. 

God is Love!  If we love one another, we love God; we are in intimate union with Him.  If we don't love one another, we do not love God; our intimacy with Him is incomplete.  St. John, just a few verses later in his epistle tells us that if we say we love God and do not love our neighbor, we are a liar.  Blunt, no wiggle room, truth; we cannot separate love of God from love of neighbor; love of our fellow man.

Who am I to love?  I'll answer with a question; who is it ok not to love?  Jesus has commanded us to love everyone; our brother and our enemy, those who love us and those who hate us, those who we know and those that we do not know, those who trust us and those who do not trust us, those who look like us and those who do not look like us, those who worship like us and those who do not worship like us. those who are lovable and those who are unlovable; love one another because God is love. 

Why are we to love this radically, this totally?  So that our joy may be in us and our joy might be complete.  Love one another. 

Since today is Mother's Day I looked up Catholic Saints who were mothers.  I was pleased to find information on over 300 witnesses to love.  I would encourage us all to do the same and be inspired by the lives of these Saints.  Of course the most excellent example of Saintly motherhood is Mary.  She is our mom too, given to all us as mom when Jesus, from the Cross told St. John, behold your mother; and to Mary, behold your Son.  Several centuries later a mom prayed her son from a life of sin to that of a great Saint and Doctor of the Church.  Her name is St. Monica, her son St, Augustine.  Fast forward to 1962 when a wife, mom and physician was told to abort her fourth pregnancy.  She had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and doctors said it would be her life of that of the baby.  Saint Gianna Molla choose the baby, choose life, choose love.  In the week ahead, can we pray for the intercession of these Saintly mothers?

So dear Tina Turner, you see love is more, so much more, than a second hand emotion.  What's love got to do with it?  The answer: EVERYTHING, because God is Love.  Love one another!

No comments:

Post a Comment