Friends
Peace be with you.
I would guess that if I were to ask how many of you live in the house in which you grew up, it would be a very small number of people if any at all. I’m, of course, not talking about my little friends who are still growing up. In a metropolitan area, it’s not normal for people to hang onto a house from generation to generation, unlike where I used to live in more rural areas of the State of Iowa where it is more common. My Mom moved three years ago to a smaller house and it still kind of feels weird going to her new house. When she lived in the old house in which I was raised, it felt very comfortable. I had memories of repairing the cracked mortar of the bricks of the garage or wrestling with my older brothers in the living room or watching our dog do the zoomies after being outside in the winter. This new house is a nice house but it doesn’t have those memories for me. It feels a little sterile, in fact.
Our gospel for today’s Mass is a continuation of the gospel from last week. In last week’s gospel, Jesus encouraged the disciples to remain in his love five times. We only heard it once this week before he goes on to talk about what it means to remain in his love. What I didn’t include in my homily last week was a comment by Dr. Peter Kreeft that the word remain is somewhat inadequate when it comes to the original Greek word that is being translated. He says that when he hears the word remain, it means not to leave. But the word that is being translated there has more of a sense of “abide” or “live.” If I were told to remain in the house, it sounds rather sterile to me. But if I was told to abide in the house or live in the house, it’s the difference between someone welcoming me to their home and telling me to make myself at home, someone walking to a cupboard to get me a cup for water versus telling me which cupboard the cups are in and inviting me to get some ice and water from their fridge.
It’s important we understand this to really understand how radical this gospel is. First, Jesus says that he loves us with the same love the Father has for him. That’s amazing to ponder. Spend ten minutes in front of the Blessed Sacrament in adoration internally repeating to yourself “You love me as much as the Father loves you.” It’s humbling. It’s baffling. It would be enough to overwhelm us but he goes on. Then spend another ten minutes saying “You want me to live in that love.” It’s true to say that he doesn’t want us to leave his love, he wants us to remain in it. But this is really where I think Dr. Kreeft has a good point. Jesus knows we will only truly live, truly thrive, if we live in his love. Our life will be joyful because we connect it to the one who died for the salvation of the world. If we abide in his love, his joy will be ours and his joy will be complete. And this joy is what he most wants for us and wants us to pass onto others.
If we abide in his love, we will also want to live as he lived. We’ll want to model our life on the life of Jesus. That was the whole purpose of the commandments, to put forth how we could live a life like God on earth. If we don’t abide in Jesus’ love, they can appear to be arbitrary rules, man made even, that are a tool of repression. But if they come from someone who loves us and wants us to live in his joy, someone telling us that this is what makes his life joyful and that it can make our life meaningful too, we’re more apt to do it. It’s the difference between hearing healthy living tips from a friend whose life is anything but healthy versus hearing healthy living tips from a friend who genuinely seems to be living a healthy life. Both of them may care for us and want the best life for us but the healthy person is actually living a life that is making them healthy so we’re probably going to listen to them.
But, if we want to live in Christ’s love, that means we have to love one another. If the fact that Jesus loves me with the same love that the Father has for him is overwhelming to me, that means that, if I’m going to live a life like his, I need to love others with that same kind of love, especially those hardest to love. In a world that prizes self love and getting what we’re due above all things, how can we love others with the same love Jesus has for us?
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