The challenge of loVe
The words of our Lord Jesus Christ,“I love you. The Father loves you and God created you out of love,” are indeed comforting. These very words please us simply because they give us an assurance that God is always there to love us. He is always with us. The words serve as our way towards eternal life. However, these words do not merely please us but they also challenge us in our daily lives as human persons loved by God. The assurance that we are loved challenges us to love others in return. We are loved by God and we are also called to love. We are blessed, so we are also called to be a blessing for others. It is a two-way love story between God and us, between me and God.
Our Gospel for today speaks about “love.” It presents us two things, namely God's love and the challenge of love. We are asked by Jesus to become perfect like the Father. Is it possible for us, limited human beings, to become perfect as the Father? Perhaps the answer is “yes,” because we are loved by God. We are loved so that we may be able to know what love is all about. And we may learn how to express that love. Therefore, we can be perfect as the Father when we put our love into God's love and love like Him. How does God love? God's love is unlimited. He makes the sun shine on the good and the bad. He gives rain to those who do evil and good. God's love is for everybody.
The challenge now of love is to love God above all and to love your neighbor as Jesus loves you. Sisters and brothers in Christ, we are asked to share and express the love that we feel from God not only to our friends but also to our enemies. We are challenged to love not only the people who love us but also the people who hate us. We are asked to be a lover like God who loves us and embraces us wholeheartedly with our sins, weaknesses and wounds. God did not love only His Son and His Holy Spirit but rather He also loves us. Fr. Joel O. Jason
Reflection Question:
Do I experience God's love in my life? When did I share that love to my neighbor especially to the persons whom I hate?
Lord, I will give what You want me to give. I will do what You want me to do. I will go wherever You want me to go. I will be what You want me to be and I will love whom You want me to love. Amen.
Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs, pray for us.
