TOMORROW’S SUNDAY
Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you…No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
It is hard to love someone you don’t know. But it is even harder to love someone you do. After all, the more you know someone, the harder it is to turn a blind eye at their defects. That’s what makes Christ’s love for us so admirable, so beautiful. He knows us. And still, he loves us.
This morning at Mass I heard the Celtic Alleluia. Many people love this rendition. I don’t. Every time I hear it, I imagine a group of Irish drunks, in a pub, with a Guinness in their hands, toasting each other as they sing it. But does the song have a problem or do I? I think I have the problem. My problem is like everybody’s problem. Our problem is that our mind is like a filter. We love to filter the world so that we can see things the way we want to see them, and not the way they really are.
Take a flower. What exactly is it? In the mind of a scientist it’s a plant; to a girlfriend it’s a gift; to a store owner a source of income; a poet inspiration; a widow, a reminder; a bee a source of food; a weed something that’s in the way.
But what exactly is it? Only God knows. For only God sees things for what they really are. Who am I? If I was forced to answerthisquestion,Iwouldhave to say, “Whatever I am, I am not myself ”. People hardly know me and I hardly know myself. WhenIfinallythinkIknowmyself,Iprovemyselfwrong.Icontinue to be a mystery to others and to myself. But God knows me. God commands us to love everyone not because we know them,butbecausewewillnever know them.
God knows everyone; and althoughHeknows,hecontinues to love. Love is the Christian’s net – the catch all – for those we knowanddonotknow,because love can define who we are and who we were meant to be.
Christians are the freest people in the world. We don’t have to pick and choose who to love. We are allowed to love everyone; those we don’t know and those we think we know. And just because people change, it doesn’t mean I have to change. I can still love.