“So I have Loved You”

What is the greatest passage in all of Scripture, in all the richness of God’s Word and Sacred Scripture?  What is the greatest revelation?  There’s no official response to that. But many think that it’s the passage that we heard today. And the first reading of St. John, very simple, three words, “God is love.”  God is love.  So another question, what is your favorite passage in all of scripture?  Think that’s a real interesting question.  Because oftentimes, a person will sense that there’s a certain passage in Scripture, which really has spoken to them in a very special way throughout their life.  And it’s different for each person.  St. John Paul, when someone asked him that question, do you know what he said?  He said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  So now a question you probably don’t know the answer to, what is my favorite passage?   My favorite passage is also one  we heard today in the Gospel, “as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.  Live on in my love.”  Because think of that, what Jesus is saying to help us understand His love for you, He’s saying, it’s like, the way the Father loves Him.  And there’s nothing greater than the love that the Father has for the Son, which is the Holy Spirit.  There’s this, it’s impossible that there could be any greater love, and that’s what He’s saying, is the way He loves us.  It’s like that, the way He loves you.  There’s so much evil in our world today, and love often seems overwhelmed by evil, and even the word love so many times people say they love each other, and then after a while, they hate each other.  Love seems so weak and overwhelmed in our world.  And here, Jesus is talking about the love which is greater than everything, and that nothing can overcome. And that’s not something far away from us, that’s His love for you. That’s at the core of who you are.  Jesus said to St. Faustina that, to help us understand how much He loves us, how much He loves you, we should think that all that He did in becoming man, living and then offering His life was done just for you, for you personally, and only for you.  As a way to help us understand what this love that He has for you is, and when you think of that, it begins to change everything.  Sometimes we can feel like, well, Jesus died for everybody.  And everybody, I’m just a tiny, tiny little speck in that crowd, as I’m just kind of part of that, a huge bunch that He died for.  But if you think that He died for you personally, as if He died for you alone, so that is for you, that is about you, that is about who you are, and was done for you.  That is for you.  That is the gift, especially for you, then that changes everything.  It changes our understanding of Jesus, not someone far away. But the person who has loved you like no one else, and also changes who you are, because you’re the one He did that for.   And so there must be a value in your life beyond what you can understand.  St. Paul said, “the life I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”   So you can say that too, like St. Paul, who loved you, and gave Himself up for you personally.  We often, when we hear the gospel like the gospel passage we  also heard today when Jesus says, “Love one another, as I have loved you,” and even He asked us even to love our enemies, and it sounds hard, right?  It’s not hard, it’s impossible.  For man, it’s impossible, but for God, all things are possible. And so often we’re discouraged to say, Well, I’m supposed to love a whole lot, and I don’t feel like I can love that way. I don’t feel like I have that love for others. And I don’t even feel maybe I have that love for God.  But I think that’s why I think the passage today is so helpful, because it’s reminding us that the first thing Jesus asked us to do, is not to love. It’s to accept to be loved, to receive love.  St. John says, “we love because He first loved us.”  We love because He first loved us.  It’s not us who love God, and God, oh, He loves me a whole lot. I’m gonna love Him. It always starts with God. The only way we can love, really love is if God is the source of love, loves us first. And then the passage we heard today, St. John says, “and this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son,” and this is love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us, because for us to be able to love we first have to receive it. The passage we heard today, that comes right before that passage, immediately before it and we heard this last week, it’s when Jesus says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.”  Sometimes we’re kind of like branches, who say I’m going to give a lot of fruit today, jump off the vine, and run around trying to give a lot of fruit. And don’t realize that they can’t give any fruit, because they’re not connected to the vine.  The only way for the branch to give fruit, it doesn’t have to be the most intelligent branch, it doesn’t have to be the strongest branch, all it has to do is one thing, it has to remain attached to the vine, so that the sap can flow from the vine into the branch, and then it can bear fruit.  And that’s how we can bear fruit, by remaining united to the Lord so that His love can flow into us and through us. Think of like a window, a window at night doesn’t give any light, because the light doesn’t come from the window itself, but it comes through the window. And thus we can share God’s love, if we let the love come through us.  We’re not the source of that love, but if we be open and transparent to God, then His love can flow through us.  So we don’t have to be the ones who generate the love, we have to let God’s love.  We have to first of all receive His love.  I want to read you a passage from St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and see if you can follow it.  So she’s in a convent, and she’s writing to one of the older sisters who she’s calling mother. She says “God does not say to you, as He said to Peter, do you love me more than these?  Mother listen to what He tells you. And this is the key passage. Let yourself be loved more than these. Let yourself be loved.  Let yourself be loved more than these, is your vocation. This love can rebuild what you have destroyed.”   So because the sister she’s writing to is discouraged by the sins that she has, the bad things that she’s done.  This love can rebuild what you have destroyed.  Let yourself be loved. “Mother, let yourself be loved more than these.  It is in that way that your Master wills for you to be appraised of His glory.  Just as Saint Elizabeth of The Trinity,  her whole life was dedicated that passage, I’ve been appraised to the glory of God.  “God rejoices to build up in you by His love and for His glory. And it is He alone who wants to work in you, even though you will have done nothing to attract this grace, except that what your creature can do, works of sin and misery.  He loves you like that. And the hours when you feel only oppression, and lassitude, you will please Him even more, if you faithfully believe.  If you faithfully believe that He is still working, that He is still loving you just the same.”  And so that what she was called to do, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity is saying, is to let yourself be loved, let God love you. That’s a pretty good vocation, isn’t it?  To let God love you. That doesn’t sound so terrible, does it? Let God love you, because that’s our sap, that’s our nourishment, that’s our medicine.  God’s love is our medicine, it’s our consolation, it’s our strength, it’s everything.  That’s the greatest need of every human person is for God’s love, and oftentimes, we don’t know that.  And so we’re looking for love and all sorts of crazy relationships and crazy things and all sorts of things that we get involved in substance abuse, and all sorts of addictions and everything and all sorts of things. But at the root, what we’re looking for, without knowing it, is God’s love. The world is dying, for lack of love, and we seek to fulfill it in so many traps.  So what can we do, to let God love us ,to receive more fully this love?  You know, people want to be healthy, they talk about having a good diet, good nourishment.  And so we’re talking about the best nourishment, what’s the best nourishment for our soul?  So it’s to believe, because it’s God who loves us, but we also have to receive His love. And to receive His love, we have to believe. That’s why St. Paul said, “I believe in He who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.”  I think that’s the key act of faith. It’s not just believing that God exists, or it’s not just believing that Jesus is God, it’s believing that He loves you, personally.  But that’s not always easy. Because sometimes we feel very unworthy, and we are unworthy.  And sometimes, we don’t feel His love. On the contrary, we feel like God has abandoned us. We feel He’s not listening to us, and know the way our life is turning out, we don’t see any signs of His love.  So it can be very hard, this act of faith.  Jesus on the cross Himself said, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me.”   But those words of Jesus on the cross also revealed to us the fact that we can feel abandoned doesn’t mean that He doesn’t love us, just the way when He said those words, it didn’t mean that the Father didn’t love Him.  But it meant that He was feeling, experiencing, abandonment.  And in fact, no one was more loved by the Father than Jesus, and yet He felt abandoned.  And so what that’s revealing to us is the fact that we can feel abandoned by God, doesn’t mean that He doesn’t love us. God asks His friends, to experience also that terrible trial of abandonment, to help other souls, who feel so lost, and without God. And so that’s why we need faith, because we don’t always feel that love.  St. John says, “we know and believe the love God has for us.” The love God has for us, but we have to believe it.  And so what can we do to strengthen our faith?   I want to give you one concrete exercise that you can do, it’s like, so it’s kind of like, it’s kinda like a door, a door, kinda like a heavy door. And this door is the door that God’s love comes through a bit.  And many people, it’s shattered or it’s almost shattered. And it’s not always easy to open because there’s a lot of resistance. And so what can we do to open wider that door, so more of His love can flow?  So that’s the exercise I want to give you.  And you can do this exercise today during this Mass. The exercise is to thank God, for loving you so much, to thank God for loving you, personally, so much.  What if you don’t feel Him loving you?  That’s when it’s especially powerful and is especially necessary as like when there’s a lot of resistance on that door, when you don’t feel His love.  That’s when it’s so powerful, that’s when because it takes pure faith.  When I feel abandoned by you, I feel like you’re not listening to me.  But I still believe that you love me, and so I thank you for loving me so much.  When there’s more resistance, you know, and an exercise that talks about resistance training, the more resistance there is, the more of an exercise it is.  And sometimes there’s a lot of resistance to an act of faith.  It’s hard.  But that’s also when it makes our faith stronger. To believe in His love for you personally.  So in this Mother’s Day, mother’s have that special vocation that God has given to be the instruments, and the signs of His love for His children.  And so today, we pray for all mothers who have this sublime vocation, the greatest creature, this was the vocation of the greatest, most exalted creature of our Blessed Mother, was precisely to be a mother, Mother of God and our Mother.  So mothers have a special role, and being the instruments of God’s love. And so with our Blessed Mother, with Mary, if you want to you can close your eyes and listen to these words of the Lord again.  And then if you want to join this Mass, even right now, after I finished this homily, you can make that act of thanking God for loving you so much.  And so here’s the passage, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, live on in my love.”