20220104 LOVING WITH THE LOVE OF GOD
04 January, 2022, Tuesday After Epiphany
First reading | 1 John 4:7-10 © |
Let us love one another, since love comes from God
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.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 71(72):1-4,7-8 © |
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.
Gospel Acclamation | cf.Mt4:23 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Jesus proclaimed the Good News of the kingdom
and cured all kinds of diseases among the people.
Alleluia!
Or: | Lk4:17 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
The Lord has sent me to bring the good news to the poor,
to proclaim liberty to captives.
Alleluia!
Or: | Lk7:16 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
A great prophet has appeared among us;
God has visited his people.
Alleluia!
Or: | cf.1Tim3:16 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Glory to you, O Christ,
proclaimed to the pagans;
glory to you, O Christ,
believed in by the world.
Alleluia!
Or: | Mt4:16 |
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!
Gospel | Mark 6:34-44 © |
The feeding of the five thousand
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.
LOVING WITH THE LOVE OF GOD
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [1 JOHN 4:7-10; MARK 6:34-44]
The basis of Christian love for our brothers and sisters is never merely a humanitarian response to the suffering of humanity. Rather, it is in response to the love of God for us. St John underscored this when he wrote, “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.” Our capacity to love must come from God Himself, since love comes from God alone.
A love that does not come from God would be at most an imperfect love. Such love is often tainted by a love of self, since our love for others springs from us, not from God. Human love is always imperfect even though it does reflect something of God’s love. Even the love between husband and wife, and friends, is a reciprocal love. We love in order to be loved. But if we are not loved in return, eventually, we will withdraw our love for that person and direct that love to someone else who would respond to our love. As human beings, we all need love, if not at least some appreciation. To give without conditions, to serve without being appreciated, to love without being loved would mean that we have the capacity of divine love.
Why do people get involved in philanthropic work, humanitarian service or community service if not for the sense of fulfilment that we get from helping someone, from having made a difference in the lives of others, for having uplifted someone who needed help? We feel happy for the person who is helped and loved; and we feel happy for ourselves that we have done good. So the hearts of both the recipients and the benefactors are filled with joy. But if we are not appreciated by those whom we serve or even accused wrongly, we would feel very hurt and of course, give up serving and helping those whom we deem to be ingrates.
A more perfect love comes not from the love of our brothers and sisters but from God. We must not think that only Christians love perfectly with the love of God. Non-Christians who have encountered God would also know how to love as well. The fact that someone can love without conditions and expectations of gratitude in any way, who loves freely because his heart is full of love, that person has truly encountered God. The only motivation for him to love is because his heart is filled with God’s love. When our heart is filled with love, love will pour out from us. St Paul wrote about the love of God saying, His “love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Rom 5:5)
‘God is love’ captures the heart and essence of God. God is not just loving but He is pure love. Because God is love, He shares His life and love with us not because we are worthy or because He needs us to find happiness and fulfilment. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes it clear, “St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things ‘not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it’, for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: ‘Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand.'” (CCC 293) God created us out of His goodness, love and abundance. In other words, God did not create us to find fulfilment for Himself, unlike us who love so as to find fulfilment through the love and appreciation that we receive from those whom we love. Our love is a dependent love whereas God’s love is free and unconditional.
Hence, those of us who have encountered God’s love and have known Him would enjoy a greater purity in loving people. In other words, we love not because we have to, or we need to feel good about ourselves in loving people, but because we have received so much love from God that is poured into our hearts that we want to share that joy of being loved with others. So like God, it is a love that is poured from our hearts to others. Our love will be like that of the birds who sing from joy every morning whether we are there to listen to them or not, or like that of the sun that shines even when we refuse to wake up and see the light. God’s love is not dependent on our response, and neither does God love us less if we do not love Him. Jesus made it clear, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Mt 6:44f)
To enable us to love like Him, God showed us the example of love by giving up His Son for us. St John wrote, “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.” When St Paul reflected on it, he said, “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.” (Rom 8:31-33) St Augustine in his Confessions upon contemplating God’s love for us in Christ exclaimed, “How great was your love for us, good Father, for you did not even spare your own Son, but gave him up to save us sinners! How great was your love for us!” (Confessions, X, 43)
God does not demand from us something impossible without His showing the way and giving us the capacity to do the same. By contemplating on the sacrifice of His Son on the cross, we will have life in and through Him. Encountering His love on the cross for us all, we will be overwhelmed by His love and sacrifice for us. From His love, our hearts will be filled with love for Him because we are healed by His love, forgiven and set free to love others. Otherwise we will lack the capacity to love. This was the case of the disciples in today’s gospel. When it was late, the disciples came to Jesus, “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 some-thing to eat.” Instead of solving the problem, they sought to put the problem back to the people because they knew their limitations to give. But the Lord replied, “Give them something to eat yourselves.” They answered, “Are we to go and spend two hundred denarii on bread for them to eat?” Indeed, they felt helpless because they depended on their limited capacity to give. They failed to depend on God’s love and power.
Jesus however remained undaunted in the face of the impossible. He trusted in the Father’s love because He knew that the Father’s love will never fail Him. He asked them, “How many loaves have you. Go and see.” And when they had found out they said, “Five, and two fish.” After ordering them to sit in groups, Jesus “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.” In this setting, the evangelist was making references to Moses who fed the people with manna in the desert, and Elisha who multiplied twenty loaves of barley bread to feed a hundred people. (2 Kgs 4:42-44) God is the One who provides. God makes it possible for us to love all.
We too must learn from the Lord not just to love concretely our brothers and sisters but to love fully and abundantly, the way the Lord fed the people with the bread and continue to feed us in the Eucharist. We must draw strength from the Lord to love not with our limited and conditional love, but with the love of God in our hearts. As Christians, it is not enough to proclaim the gospel in words but also in concrete acts of love and mercy. We read that “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.” His compassion was not limited to feeding them with the Word of God but with food to sustain their hunger as well. As we celebrate the birth of the Lord, let us as Christians also be life-givers through our sharing of the gospel in word and in deed.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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