LOVING AWARENESS

God Loves Us

LOVING AWARENESS -5TH Sunday of Easter, Year C

            Most of us know in a general way that God loves us. That is among the first (or should be) truths we learn about God. To know such a truth as part of the Gospel with our heads doesn’t always mean our hearts, emotions or feeling have received the message. This is true also on the level of human love. Just because you tell someone you love them, and they get the message with their head doesn’t guarantee it reaches their heart and emotions. And even if the message of love reaches our minds, hearts, and emotions, it doesn’t mean we have become totally aware of the gift of love or fully understand the greatness of love, or been able to respond back with love.

            Our ability to love is based on how much we have been loved, or even more correctly, how much we have become aware we are loved and experienced and received the love given. Our full realization of the love of God would turn us instantly into people who love others as Christ Jesus has and still loves us. At the Last Supper, Jesus was revealing the full depth of His love. This love would demand a response. This love was so great that it resulted in a new Commandment, or a new power to respond on the part of the disciples. Jesus said: “I give you a new Commandment…As I have loved you, so you also should love one another”.

            Our power to carry out this Commandment of Jesus will be as great as our realization and reception of the love of Jesus. The Gospel tells about the love of Jesus which went beyond any love the world had ever known or ever will know. Jesus totally gave Himself out of love for us on the Cross. Only those who come to a realization and personal experience of this love of Jesus for them can begin to fulfill His New Commandment. Love of its very nature must first be received before it can be given. In the receiving of love, we become conscious of its power and presence.

             God in Jesus loves the world and every person in the world fully. His love doesn’t bear the full fruit of response unless in some way it is made conscious to those to whom it is directed. Those with power to love have become conscious and aware of being loved. This is true of human and divine love. Those who have become great saints are the ones who, somewhere along the way of their lives, became conscious of God’s love for them and simply made a response to God’s love in their lives. That makes becoming conscious of God’s love, and making ourselves as aware of it as possible, one of our greatest tasks in our natural and spiritual faith life.

            An equal task becomes an adequate expression and return response to the love of God revealed to us in Jesus. It was the single message of Jesus expressed in a thousand different ways. If we can come to believe in God’s love for us with our hearts, minds and emotions, then we can accept all the other great truths which flow out of His revealing love, such as the Kingdom and reign of God, and His dwelling among people. Mary is the model saint who believed in the Lord’s love for her. Consider the lives of the saints and you will find when everything is said and done, they all held in common a belief and awareness of the abiding love and presence of God with them.

            As people come to realize that they are loved on any level, human or natural, divine or supernatural, they begin to reveal this love through some form of response. Children love because they have been loved. Loving children are the best sign that they have been loved by their parents. If parents see the power to love in their children, they can be quite certain their children have received and are aware of being loved. Jesus made this the sign of the disciples for the world to see, and for the disciples to know they have received and become aware of the love of the Lord for them. “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

            Loving disciples are a sign we have become aware of the love of the Lord for us. Our power to love others gives us some idea of how conscious, aware and receptive we have been, and are, to the love of the Lord for us. It also gives us some idea of how much power we have to witness to the Lord. Love witnesses to love. Jesus said in giving the new Commandment: “My children, I will be with you only a little while longer”. He was going to heaven. His love could still be known to people on earth through the sign of the disciples’ love. “This is how all will know that you are my disciples…” The disciples, realizing the presence and the love of Jesus, would have the power to reflect His love to the world. “He will dwell with them and they will be His people and God Himself will always be with them as their God.” This is the message for us to believe in. This is the faith Paul and Barnabas proclaimed as good news and encouraged them to “…persevere in the faith…” even though we must “…undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God”.

            Lord, help us to grow in our awareness and experience of your love and presence with us so we will have a greater power to carry out your Commandment to love one another as you have loved us, and to be the signs and witnesses to your love in our world and time today. May we know your love with our minds, hearts, emotions and lives, and bring this good news of hope to others as we express our love for you through the love of your people where you dwell. Amen!!

Reflection on Divine Mercy #539

“As God has made us sharers in His mercy and even more than that, dispensers of that mercy, we should therefore have great love for each soul, beginning with the elect and ending with the soul that does not yet know God.”