6th Sunday of Easter B - Homily 4

Homily 4 - 2021

Jesus tells us to “Remain in my love.” In a sense we have no option — we are soaking in his love all the time, saturated in it. If we exist at all, it is God’s being that is sustaining us. And God’s being, God’s life, is simply love. God is love. So, if we are at all, we are being sustained by divine love. More than that. The God who loves and sustains us is also totally aware of us and of every thought and feeling and decision of ours, and intensely interested in us — every one of us. But we are not necessarily aware of being sustained by love, or by God whose deeply personal interest in us is also accompanying us. There may no deliberate reaching back towards God on our part. Our “remaining” can be very thin indeed — no really personal relationship or mutuality at all.

No wonder, contrary to what Jesus hoped, his “joy” is hardly in us, and our joy falls painfully short of “complete”. It need not be like that. He would love that we were as interested in him as he is in us, that we knew him well, and that we loved him as he loves us. He would love us to learn the otherwise unsuspected depths of his heart. Loving defines Jesus. That is what he was talking about when he said, "If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love”. When Jesus used the word “commandments”, he was saying nothing like, “Do what I say, or look out!” He was talking about the non-negotiable primacy of love that was dearest to his heart — which he longed we would discover and come to appreciate as much as he did.

One of those things we would discover is how opening ourselves to accept his love for us leads us inevitably to a genuine love for ourselves; and we can do that without having to pretend for a moment that we are in any way paragons of virtue. God’s love does not depend on our goodness. God’s prior, unconditional, love is precisely what has the capacity over time to transform us according to his own heart. And as we practice cooperating with God and loving our anything-but-perfect selves, we find ourselves wanting and able to love one another. The initiative is totally with God, “You did not choose me, no, I chose you”. Everything is gift! The initiative is always God’s!

At this stage, even the seeming impossible begins to happen. As our hearts begin to conform to Christ’s, as his values become our values, and his desires our desires, the things that we ask the Father for in his name come to reflect the priorities that Jesus learnt from his Father — the things that the Father has been patiently waiting for us to come genuinely to value and desire — and which he is only too keen to grant.