20190108 We are all called to love
08 JANUARY, 2019, Tuesday after the Epiphany
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: White.
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First reading
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1
John 4:7-10 ©
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Let us love one another,
since love comes from God
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My dear people,
let us love one
another
since love comes
from God
and everyone who
loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Anyone who fails
to love can never have known God,
because God is
love.
God’s love for
us was revealed
when God sent
into the world his only Son
so that we could
have life through him;
this is the love
I mean:
not our love for
God,
but God’s love
for us when he sent his Son
to be the
sacrifice that takes our sins away.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm
71(72):1-4,7-8 ©
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All nations
shall fall prostrate before you, O Lord.
O God, give your
judgement to the king,
to a
king’s son your justice,
that he may
judge your people in justice
and
your poor in right judgement.
All nations
shall fall prostrate before you, O Lord.
May the
mountains bring forth peace for the people
and
the hills, justice.
May he defend
the poor of the people
and
save the children of the needy.
All nations
shall fall prostrate before you, O Lord.
In his days
justice shall flourish
and
peace till the moon fails.
He shall rule
from sea to sea,
from
the Great River to earth’s bounds.
All nations
shall fall prostrate before you, O Lord.
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Gospel Acclamation
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cf.Mt4:23
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Alleluia,
alleluia!
Jesus proclaimed
the Good News of the kingdom
and cured all
kinds of diseases among the people.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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Lk4:17
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Alleluia,
alleluia!
The Lord has
sent me to bring the good news to the poor,
to proclaim
liberty to captives.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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Lk7:16
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Alleluia,
alleluia!
A great prophet
has appeared among us;
God has visited
his people.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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cf.1Tim3:16
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Alleluia,
alleluia!
Glory to you, O
Christ,
proclaimed to
the pagans;
glory to you, O
Christ,
believed in by
the world.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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Mt4:16
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Alleluia,
alleluia!
The people that
lived in darkness
has seen a great
light;
on those who
dwell in the land and shadow of death
a light has
dawned.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark
6:34-44 ©
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The feeding of the five
thousand
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As Jesus stepped
ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like
sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length. By
now it was getting very late, and his disciples came up to him and said, ‘This
is a lonely place and it is getting very late. So send them away, and they can
go to the farms and villages round about, to buy themselves something to eat.’
He replied, ‘Give them something to eat yourselves.’ They answered, ‘Are we to
go and spend two hundred denarii on bread for them to eat?’ ‘How many loaves
have you?’ he asked. ‘Go and see.’ And when they had found out they said,
‘Five, and two fish.’ Then he ordered them to get all the people together in
groups on the green grass, and they sat down on the ground in squares of
hundreds and fifties. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his
eyes to heaven and said the blessing; then he broke the loaves and handed them
to his disciples to distribute among the people. He also shared out the two fish
among them all. They all ate as much as they wanted. They collected twelve
basketfuls of scraps of bread and pieces of fish. Those who had eaten the
loaves numbered five thousand men.
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ 1 JOHN 4:7-10; MARK 6:34-44 ]
We are all
called to love. No man can live without love. We are created for
love. Right from the outset in the Book of Genesis, we read that no
suitable helpmate was found among animals and the rest of creation.
Hence, God created a woman to be his helpmate. (Cf Gn 2:20f) In a similar vein, St Paul
wrote, “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have
love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my
body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. ” (1 Cor 13:2f) Indeed, success and wealth
without love or someone to share our joys, is totally meaningless.
However, all
of us want to love but we do not know what is love and, most of all, we are so
inadequate in love. Most of us today are so confused about love
because love, in our modern world, is not based on truth. And even if we
know that true love is to give ourselves to others completely, most of us are
not capable of loving selflessly. Our love of self is disguised and
masked as love of others. Instead of loving others unconditionally, we
often make use of them to fulfill our affective needs. In many
relationships, couples tend to manipulate each other for one’s pleasure or
personal needs. That was how the disciples felt when Jesus told them to
feed the hungry crowd. They wanted to save themselves from the
inconvenience of love by sending the crowd away. But Jesus was
insistent, “Give them something to eat yourselves.” Again, their
selfishness showed in their reluctance to part with their money. They
answered, “Are we to go and spend two hundred denarii on bread for them to
eat?” Like them, we do not have the capacity to love even our loved ones,
not to say our friends, fellow Church members, colleagues, much less strangers
and the poor. Those of us who are active in Church ministry often
experience burn-out and end up giving up completely serving the Church and the
poor. We feel that we have only five loaves and two fish. We
feel frustrated, resentful and angry because we feel so helpless and hopeless
at times.
Hence, St John
says “love comes from God.” This is beautifully illustrated in the
gospel. We read of the compassion of God in Jesus. “As Jesus
stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were
like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some
length.” Instead of being uninvolved, He wanted to satisfy the hunger of
the crowd Himself. This explains why His heavenly Father helped Jesus to
perform the miracle to feed the 5000 because God is like that. He wants
to be involved in love and in our lives. Love is not mere words and nice
feelings and great ideas.
But more
importantly, the multiplication of loaves is but the anticipation of the
Eucharist which is a celebration of His passion, death and resurrection. In other words, this miracle
is more than just a material miracle but it expresses the total, unconditional,
absolute and unreserved giving of Christ the Son of God to us. He
wants to satisfy our needs even at His personal expense. He is always
thoughtful and desires to give us complete happiness in life.
He does not shy from the sacrifices of love. So He tries to find ways and
means to feed us. He asked for the five loaves and two fish. He
prayed to the heavenly Father to bless and multiply the food. And
the end result was that not only were all fed but “they collected twelve
basketfuls of scraps of bread and pieces of fish. Those who had eaten the
loaves numbered five thousand men.”
So when St
John invites us to love one another, he is not asking us to love from our own
capacity but from Him. “Let us love one another since love comes from
God.” But how is this love of God coming to us? “God’s
love for us was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we
could have life through him; this is the love I mean: not our love for God, but
God’s love for us when he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins
away.” For St John, therefore, the understanding that “God is love” is
not a philosophical idea or a beautiful thought but a concrete act of God in
the giving up of His only Son at Christmas and at the passion. It is this
love that empowers us to love likewise. Our capacity to love must
come from Christ alone.
From this basis,
we can appreciate why St John wrote, “Everyone who loves is begotten by God
and knows God.Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because
God is love.” Love, therefore, is the sure criterion that we love
God and we know Him. If we do not know God or that we have been
begotten by Him, then the capacity to love will be limited. But
then some might say, what about those who do not know God and yet love
much? Indeed, we see that there are many non-Christians, even freethinkers
and atheists who are involved in humanitarian works. Many of them are
even more compassionate and self-giving than many of our Catholics. In
fact, they put us to shame in their generosity and outreach to the poor and the
suffering. Yet, they do not know God! Well, the truth
is that they do know Him implicitly because they are created in His image and
likeness. They might not know Him personally, but they know Him deep in
their hearts. This explains why in every human person, our shared
humanity makes us feel with and for each other. However, if they were to
know Jesus, they could do even much more than the five loaves and two fish they
have. When they give these to Jesus, He can empower them to do what
humanly speaking we cannot do.
Hence, to know
Jesus is critical in love, service and ministry. But let us be clear that the
knowledge of God in St John’s understanding is not merely intellectual
cognition. When he says “everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows
God” or “anyone who fails to love can never have known God”, he is speaking of
an intimacy of mind and heart. It is not so much intellectual knowledge
of God but a union with God. To be begotten by God is to share His life
and love. So if we love deeply it is because His love is in
us. Conversely, those who have no capacity to love imply that they do not
really know God or His love for them. If we have known the love of
God for us, our hearts will also be filled with His love because His Spirit
will dwell in us.
Indeed, this
is what the Eucharist is supposed to do for us. In the Eucharistic
celebration, we have two parts, the liturgy of the Word and the
Eucharist. Both are essential to the Eucharistic meal. The
Word of God prepares our minds and the Eucharist touches our hearts. This
is in imitation of Jesus who always preached before He healed or fed the
people, as we read in today’s gospel. Unless they have heard the
Word of God, the miracle would not have happened, whether literally as narrated
or symbolically, as some scripture scholars suggest, namely, that the people
were so inspired by the act of Jesus’ sharing that few loaves and fish that
they too came out to openly share what they had in their baskets with
others. Whichever way we read it, the point is that a miracle truly
happened. The greatest miracle at the end of the day was not the miracle
itself but what the miracle did, transforming people’s lives, touching their
hearts, enlightening their minds, and making them loving, caring and generous
like Jesus in His compassion.
So let our
celebration of Christmas, made concrete in the Eucharistic celebration, be not
a mere ritual, not a superstition, but truly be a transforming encounter of
God’s love.
This explains why it is so important for all in active ministry, leaders and
parents to stay connected with the Lord in prayer through daily meditation on
the Word of God, contemplation of His love, especially in the Eucharist, and
find healing and mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation when we have sinned
or when we are weak. Begotten in His love, we too will be able to
love others with the love that He has given us.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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