LOVE DETERMINES THE QUALITY OF LIFE. 6th sunday of easter year A.
6th Sunday of Easter year A
Fr. Fred Wekesa, OSA
5/8/20264 min read
My post content6th Sunday of Easter year A
Can love keep, wait and explain?
1st Reading: Acts 8:5-8, 14-17
Psalm: Psalm 66:1-7, 16, 20
2nd Reading: 1 Peter 3:15-18
Gospel: John 14:15-21
Can love keep, wait and explain?
On this 6th Sunday of easter year A, we reflect on what Christ promised to his disciples before his departure from them. The three verbs used in this passage to illustrate the functions of Love are very important, that is to love is to KEEP, to love is to WAIT and to love is to EXPLAIN. We are going to see in detail how love performs the three highlighted functions mentioned above.
In our daily life, when a door makes some unpleasant noise because the hinges are dry and cause noisy friction, it is advisable to lubricate the door hinges with some oil so that the door can be opened smoothly. We can apply this understanding to our relationships in the world today. For example, a relationship between a child and his parents that is occasioned by quarrels or shouting episodes or abuses and insults. What could be done to lubricate such friction like relationship in the family? The simplest thing to be applied is what Jesus calls in the gospel text today as LOVE. More interestingly, according to the gospel passage today, love performs 3 functions in our life as Christians today. These are:
1. To love is to keep the commandments 2. to love is to wait for the paraclete and 3. to love is to account for the relationship or the communion that exists between us and God.
Let us explain in more profound way what it means:
To love is to keep the commandments.
Let us consider when one loves another person, there is a likelihood that whatever the loved person says, it will be treasured by such a person. A concrete example would be in a school set up, when a student has a positive attitude towards a particular teacher, there is a likelihood that such a student will be intrinsically motivated to work hard and perform well in the subject that is taught by a teacher loved. Coming back to the gospel text, we find Jesus who reminds his disciples to show real love to him by keeping the commandments, the precepts, and the teachings. In other words, to love is to keep the teachings and commandments. Are you aware of the commandments or the precepts of the lord as a Christian today? A Christian narrated to me how it happened that he went to buy a cow from the market and the seller assured him that it was remaining 3 months to give birth. Of course, he bought it, went home and when three months were over, he didn’t see any signs of the very cow giving birth. What a frustration!!! To make the matters worse, A seller of the cow was a church going Christian, baptized and even he was in church leadership. With such a frustrating scenario, one is left to wonder and question whether the seller of the cow as a Christian keeps the commandment of not telling lies to your neighbour. Let us pull up our socks and live authentic Christian life continuously in our life.
The second function of showing love is
To wait for the paraclete.
St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians 13:4-8 personifies Love and highlights that Love is patient. In this context, the disciples were to wait patiently for another advocate, the paraclete or the holy spirit. In our world today, we live in the fast-moving world, that sometimes affects the way we relate to God. More specifically, Some Christians today look for instant prayer responses, immediate miracles, quick blessings etc. Look at Jesus who was God, but he exercised the virtue of patience by living among us, preaching the good news to jews and non-jews and he patiently remained on the cross, died, buried, and resurrected from the dead. This reminds me of one day, when we were growing up, we noticed that our hen was about to hatch some chicks. Therefore, one chick was struggling to break the shell to come out, therefore I broke the shell for it be hutched quickly, but it died few hours later. I learnt that I didn’t allow the natural hutching process to take place for it. Do we exercise patience in what we do today? Do we exercise patient with one another in our society? All that is a form of expressing love. How one exercises patience determines the quality of life one lives. Finally,
Love explains the communion.
Last Sunday, Jesus talked of the communion between the father and him. On this 6th Sunday of easter year A, Christ explains what makes such communion to be possible. It is love that enables this communion between the father, the son and us. As I mentioned earlier on, love is the lubricant that enhances and makes possible our relationship to develop and grow smoothly. Do we experience communion based on love today? Yes, we do, for example, the presence of Christians in a parish who attend holy mass is a perfect explanation of the love that exists between God and us today. The presence of a husband, a wife, and some children as a family in a house explains the communion that is based on love. The presence of comments, likes, views from the videos I post weekly on this channel is enough explanations for the communion between us and God based on love.
To conclude, on this 6th Sunday of Easter year A, we are invited to love which means to keep the commandments, to love which means to exercise patience as the disciples waited for the paraclete and to love which means to enhance our communion with God. AMEN.
HAVE A BLESSED SUNDAY!!!!!