1. A Love without Boundaries
2. Love As I Have Loved You
Introduction
1. A Love without Boundaries
We are again reminded today that the heart of Christianity is love: love of God, love of one another. Jesus tells us that we have to love one another as he has loved us. This is a very demanding love, for it commits us to love not only those we like and who love us or like-minded fellow Christians, but also the difficult ones, the “unlovable,” people far from perfect, outsiders… That is not so easy, and this is probably why he calls it a commandment. Let us ask our Lord in this Eucharist that we may grow in this openness of genuine love.
2. Love As I Have Loved You
We are often surprised how inventive love can be and to discover it where we had not expected it. It makes a dour husband surprise his wife with an unpredictable gesture of tenderness or a couple in the slums adopt a child found abandoned in the street. God’s astonishing love is the source of it all. He shows it when he gives up his own Son for us. Jesus kept giving a human shape to God’s love when he cared for people and gave new chances even to outcasts, the unloved and the unlovable. Today he calls us his friends and he tells us: “Love one another as I have loved you.” With these words he challenges us in today’s Eucharist.
First Reading: God’s Love Open to All
God’s sign to Peter and the Church that believers from paganism are accepted and loved by God is that the Holy Spirit comes down on pagans too.
1 Reading ACTS 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
When Peter entered, Cornelius met him
and, falling at his feet, paid him homage.
Peter, however, raised him up, saying,
“Get up. I myself am also a human being.”
Then Peter proceeded to speak and said,
“In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly
is acceptable to him.”
While Peter was still speaking these things,
the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word.
The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter
were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit
should have been poured out on the Gentiles also,
for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God.
Then Peter responded,
“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people,
who have received the Holy Spirit even as we have?”
He ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Responsorial Psalm 98:1, 2-3, 3-4
R. (cf. 2b) The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
His right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
R.
The LORD has made his salvation known:
in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
toward the house of Israel.
R.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
break into song; sing praise.
R.
Second Reading: God Loves Us; So, We Love One Another
God loves us so much that his love took a human form in Jesus Christ. Since that time our love for one another is the sign of God’s love and of his presence among us.
2 Reading 1John 4:7-10
Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
Alleluia John 14:23
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord,
and my Father will love him and we will come to him.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel: Love One Another As I Have Loved You
Jesus loves us and wants us to stay in his love and joy by keeping his commandments of loving one another.
Gospel John 15:9-17
Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and your joy might be complete.
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.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.”
Commentary:
Today’s reading we already saw during the week: on Thursday and Friday. Because of this, our commentary will be only a poem:
Ask not of me, love, what is love?
Ask ‘what is good?’ of God above –
Ask of the great sun ‘what is light?’ –
Ask ‘what is darkness?’ of the night –
Ask sin of what may be forgiven –
Ask ‘what is happiness?’ of heaven –
Ask ‘what is folly?’ of the crowd –
Ask ‘what is fashion?’ of the shroud –
Ask ‘what is sweetness?’ of thy kiss –
Ask of thyself what beauty is.
(P.J. Bailey)
“Ask not of me, love, what is love.” Ask love. In today’s second reading, St John says, “God is love.”
Blessing
We know that God loves us
and wants to live among us.
He calls us his friends, his chosen ones.
Let us respond to his love without measure.
We are sure that we love God
and that he is present among us
when we love one another.
May God give us the strength to do so,
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. R/ Amen.
Go in peace, live in the Lord’s love, and serve him in people. Alleluia! Alleluia!
R/ Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Alleluia!