BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (# 26)
Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B – May 25, 2003
BIBLE READINGS
Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48 // I Jn 4:7-10 // Jn 15:9-17
“The Inn of the Sixth Happiness” is a 1958 movie based on the true story of Gladys Aylward, a modern day saint whose unquenchable passion to do good took her halfway around the world. Inspired by her dream to be a missionary, the English parlor maid, Gladys, journeyed to China and opened an inn for tired, hungry mule drivers crossing desolate mountain trails. Her greatest feat was achieved during the Japanese invasion of China when she led one hundred orphans to safety across enemy-held terrain. She was helped by a young man, Lee, an ex-convict and former teacher, who laid down his life in order to save the children. As Gladys and the children were crossing a forest, they chanced upon the enemy troops. Lee purposely presented himself as a decoy to lure the Japanese soldiers away from them. He was pursued and shot to death. Gladys and the children buried him with grief and devotion. The scripture text that Gladys used at the last rites for their heroic friend ended with the following words: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). This evocative text on true friendship is part of the Gospel reading that is proclaimed in today’s Sunday liturgy.
Today’s Gospel passage (Jn 15:9-17) fittingly serves as a catechesis on the great Easter event of our redemption by Jesus Christ. True love is sacrificial. The model of this ultimate self-giving love is Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life for his sheep (cf. Jn 10:11). In this Easter season, it is good to focus our attention on the great act of love that the Good Shepherd carried out for us by his saving sacrifice on the cross. St. Thomas More, an English martyr and layman, exhorts us: “Let us deeply consider the love of our Savior Jesus Christ who so loved his own unto the end that for their sakes he willingly suffered that painful end, and therein declared the highest degree of love that can be. For, as he himself says: A greater love no one has than to give his life for his friends. This is indeed the greatest love that ever anyone had. But yet had our Savior a greater, for he gave his for both friend and foe.” Indeed, God is the love that appeared in the person of Jesus Christ. He brought this sacrificial love to perfection in his death on the cross and his rising to new life.
The love of Jesus “for his own” shown in his death on the cross provides the foundation for love among his disciples. In today’s Gospel text, Jesus teaches us the various aspects of this love. Christian love is, first of all, a participation in the love of the Father and the Son. It springs forth from the love of the Father and the Son. According to Adrian Nocent: “In speaking of our union with him, Jesus uses the same terms that he uses to describe his own union with the Father. While our own union with him is only analogous to his union with the Father, the identity of the language indicates how very close our relation to God can become. The very love that unites the two divine Persons, Father and Son, is communicated to us.”
Christian love is abiding in the love of Christ who enjoins us: “Remain in my love” (Jn 15:9). As Christian disciples, we must nurture the blessings and the creative power that the Father’s love gives to us. We are the “beloved” of Christ. We are called to live a life of loving obedience to the Father’s saving will in imitation of him, our Divine Master and Shepherd. The Christians who remain in the love of Christ “listen” to the Son even as the Son “listens” to the Father. At the level of service, the Christian disciples serve fully in the way Christ did, that is, as the Servant of Yahweh. Indeed, there is nothing degrading in serving with love. At the level of intimacy, however, the Christian disciples are no longer slaves “because a slave does not know what his master is doing” (Jn 15:15), but they are “friends” for Christ has said: “I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father” (Jn 15:15).
The love of Christ, with the fullness of joy that it brings, has a vital implication: the moral imperative of loving one another. The fact that God has loved us into a new existence in Jesus and that we are no longer slaves but friends of God, moves us to follow the utmost Christian command: “Love one another as I love you” (Jn 15: 12). As loving and serving disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to transcend our selfishness and misplaced concerns in order to respond to the needs of our brothers and sisters. We can be helped in this through prayer. Madeleine Delbrel remarks: “Without prayer we can never love. It is in prayer, and prayer alone, that Christ will reveal himself to us in each person we meet, by a faith that grows keener and more clear-sighted. It is in prayer that we can ask for the gift of loving each person, a grace without which there can be no love. It is the expansion of faith and hope by prayer that will clear the path before us of the most cumbersome obstruction to love, which is self-concern.”
Finally, Christian love entails an apostolic mandate: “I appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain” (Jn 15:16). Abiding in the life-giving vine, Jesus Christ impels his followers to go to the ends of the earth, proclaiming the Gospel and bearing abundant spiritual fruits of conversion and faith. The mission “to go and bear fruit” is a result of their new status as “friends”. Indeed, as they go about harnessing for God the energies of love and reaping the rich spiritual harvest of their sacrifice, the Christian disciples keep in mind the Master’s command: “Love one another” (Jn 15:17).
A. The Lord Jesus has revealed the depth of his love in laying down his life for us. Are we ready to make the same sacrifice?
B. How do we carry out Christ’s command: “Love one another as I have loved you”?
C. Are we grateful that we have been chosen by Christ to go and bear abundant fruit? How do we actualize this missionary mandate?
(From a prayer composed by Blessed James Alberione)
Leader: Jesus, Divine Master, I thank and bless your most meek Heart, which led you to give your life for me. Your blood, your wounds, the scourges, the thorns, the cross, your bowed head tell my heart: “No one loves more than he who gives his life for the loved one.” The shepherd died to give life to the sheep. I too want to spend my life for you.
Assembly: Grant that you may always, everywhere, and in all things dispose of me for your greater glory and that I may always repeat: “Your will be done.” Inflame my heart with holy love for you and for souls.
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“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.” (Jn 15:12-13)
A. ACTION PLAN: Meditate on the life of a Christian martyr and make a personal application for your daily life.
B. ACTION PLAN: Offer a sacrificial act of loving service for God’s special “friends”: the poorest of the poor.