John 15; 9-17, Sixth Sunday in Easter. May 6, 2018

It is has been said that the whole of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, can be explained in the following words—“It is all about love!” And so it is! Yet, in our day “love” is a very broad notion. And because it is used so broadly, and one could say in many cases so carelessly (for example, I love ice cream, I love flowers, I love fishing), the word “love,” seems to have become devoid of its deeper meaning. Yet, each one of us and every human being has been created by Love—for Love. We can truly say, “Love is our only happiness!”

Today Gospel from St. John, along with the second reading from the First Epistle, also from John, reminds us what love really is, and what is the deepest meaning of the expression, “to love.” We are told that, “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son as expiation for our sins. In this we discover that Christ’s love for Christians is a reflection of the love that the divine Persons have for one another and for all men (Navarre bible, commentary on John pg 196).

This profound truth, “that God Loves you,” is the source of Christian Joy, but it is also something which calls for a fruitful response on our part. This response should take the form of a fervent desire to do God’s Holy Will in everything, that is, to keep His Commandments in imitation of Jesus Christ, who always did the Will of His Father (pg 197). Therefore, those who keep the Commandments of God, are Friends of Jesus--friends of God Himself. They are no longer slaves, but instead beloved sons and daughters of God Himself, Children who love others as Jesus has first loved them.

In light of this profound truth what does this love look like in action? And how do we respond to this love and put it into action in our own lives? To answer these questions, we first examine the actions of Christ, and then the actions of the saints.
How has Christ loved us? We look to the crucifix to see. He has loved us to the very end! He has loved us by sacrificing His own life for our sake, so that we may have life and have it more abundantly. He has become an expiation for our sins, to free us from sin and the result of sin, which is death, all so that we could have the possibility of entering into an eternal union with Love Itself—The Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Jesus’ whole life on earth was in a sense a crucifixion that merely culminated on the cross. He, who was true God from true God, begotten not made, one in being with the Father, took on the nature of the very creatures He created—he became true man while setting aside the power of His divinity. He became like us in all things but sin. And He lived His entire life on this earth entirely for us, so much so, that there was not one ounce of selfishness, self-interest or self-seeking in anything He ever did. His entire life, every action no matter how seemingly insignificant, was carried out in a spirit of total dedication for each one of us, carried out in loving sacrifice of Himself for you and for me, and for all men.

By His entire life, Jesus, showed us what the greatest of all love is, for a man to lay down his life for his friends. And because of His Resurrection from the dead, Jesus continues to show us this love by sacrificing Himself anew at the Holy Mass and in the gift of the Holy Eucharist, in which He offers and gives Himself totally to us as the Food of Love.

Also, to discover love we look to the actions, the lives of the Saints. The closest friends of Jesus—the saints, show us that it is possible for each one of us to live the life of Jesus in our own lives, to love as Jesus commands, to love like Him for Love of God and love of neighbor for love of God. The martyrs immediately come to mind here, those men, woman and even children who gave their live for love of Jesus and for His Church and Her members. Take for instance Father Maximillian Kolbe, who in a Nazi concentration camp voluntarily stepped forward to take the place of a fellow inmate-a husband and father who was about to be starved to death.

Taking the place of the husband in the starvation bunker, Father Kolbe lead the other condemned prisoners in joyful songs and praise to God as each one of them slowly and agonizingly died. Father Kolbe the last to be still alive, and his captured being perturbed with his joy and failure to die, was finally injected in the neck with acid, his dead body being thrown in one of the ovens of Auschwitz to be incinerated (we don’t have any first class relics (bones) of Kolbe).

Also, one thinks of the martyrs like St. Isaac Jogues, and the other North American Martyrs, who gave their lives to bring Christ, His Church and His Gospel of truth and love, to the Americas. Father Jogues, friend of the Huron Indians was eventually captured by their enemies the Iroquois. He was tortured by first flaying strips of his skin off, then by having his priestly sacred digits, thumb and forefinger, cut off so that he couldn’t celebrate Holy Mass. As they cut off His fingers he began to praise God out loud in front of his tormentors until one of the men suffering with him told him to stop because the Iroquois were known to make their victims eat the parts that were cut off.

Father Jogues later escaped and was able to flee to France to recuperate. He was offered a life of retirement by his superiors but refused. For love of Christ and neighbor he wanted to go back to the Indians who Christ loved and who Jogues loved, not only for the Huron but also for the Iroquois from who Christ die for as well. Shortly after arriving, as he walked out of a tent, Fr. Jogues was bludgeoned over the head by the same Iroquois, thus giving His life in love and as a witness to Love.

Although we may not be called to witness to love in this extraordinary way, we are all nonetheless called to that greatest of all loves—"for a man to lay down his life for his friends.” For us, this can be done by what is known as crucifixion by pinpricks; that is, by living our daily lives in total dedication to Christ, to His Church and to others. We do this through our faithfulness to the duties of our state in life—this includes for example, doing our jobs well; being obedient to our parents; treating others fairly, as we would like to be treated; standing up against and trying to correct injustices; and fulfilling our spiritual duties of daily prayer and study. Along with fulfilling our daily duties, living the Commandments and the teachings of the Church; setting aside what we “feel” is true and right, and instead accepting the truth that comes not from us, not from any man, but from God, the truth that ensures us the freedom to love. In all of these way and countless other little ways, we are witnesses to this truth of love, at our jobs, in our families or even during our times of play and entertainment. This may give us the opportunity to, like Christ and His saints, bear the ridicule of the godless in this world who have created their own truth and reality, and to bear it all for love of them, so that they too may not be lost but may become friends of Christ and so obtain eternal life and union with the God who is Love.

To illustrate this “ordinary witness,” I think of the example in this country of a seemingly ordinary life of St. Pierre Toussaint. He was a former slave who having obtained his freedom opened a hairdressing salon in Old Manhattan. Yet, coming to this salon in order to be close to this true friend of Christ the socially elite would gather, in order to hear Pierre’s wisdom and to receive his direction in their lives. After work, Pierre would not go home, but would spend the night nursing the sick and dying, feeding the hungry, counseling the confused, teaching the ignorant and admonishing sinners to repent of their sins and turn their lives more and more to Christ—their truest friend, by following His commandments. Totally dedicated to Christ and to others, Pierre Toussaint, hardly ever thought of Himself—He was a slave to Christ, a slave of Love for love, totally free from the worst bondage, the bondage of sin; he was indeed a true friend of Christ.

A life of laying down one’s life for the sake of one’s friends begins for us at the Holy Mass. Jesus is truly our dearest friend who has lay down His life for each one of us, and Who continues to lay down His life for us on this sacred altar. The only appropriate response on our part is to lay down our lives for Him.

We do this beginning at Holy Mass by laying down our heart, our lives, our everything on this altar for love of Jesus. Not to be outdone in generosity and love, Jesus leaves the altar and gives us His own Sacred Heart at Holy Communion in order for us to be able to love with. This is the fruit of the Resurrection, to be able to love the Father with the Heart of Christ beating alive in us. And with this same Heart of Christ in us, loving those to whom we come in contact with on a daily basis. Most of the time, as we have said, this is carried out in the ordinary acts, but ordinary acts which now become acts of divine love, for we are truly able to carry out Jesus’ command to, “love one other as He has loved us,” for it is Jesus Himself who loves others and serves others through us. Let us ask the Virgin Mary, spouse of the Holy Spirit, to help us, like the saints, to dedicate our lives totally to Jesus and to live out this self- dedication by our faithfulness to all of the Commandments and to the Fathers Holy Will.