LIVING IN LOVE AND IN GOD


WEDNESDAY AFTER EPIPHANY SUNDAY

1 Jn 4:11-18; Ps 72:1-2,10-13; MK 6:45-52

God is known through Love

Love is such a wonderful thing. It is a force beyond our complete comprehension. There is no simpler and complete capture of its essence than what Saint John gave us in the passage for our consideration. God is Love. This simple statement is both true and profound, capturing the mystery of love in such a way that equating it to God is perhaps the best way to describe it. Only God can truly illuminate what we call love. We do not fully understand love because all our experiences of it fall short of its true essence. In addition, creation that would have given us the closest example of what love is rarely enters human awareness due to sin and the corruption of evil. Only the one who truly conceives the infinite love of God poured out in creation comes close to understanding the real essence of love. The creation of man is another instance of love, which is a good example of what love is. But we are so lost in the maze of creation and attachment to creatures that we hardly return to ourselves in self-comprehension. Our inability to contemplate these instances of God’s love at work led God to design and execute another display of love suited to our sinful condition to capture our attention. The Incarnation of the Son of God is such an extravagance of God’s love that it cannot fail to capture man’s heart.

As we have presented earlier in our consideration of the first letter of Saint John, his whole purpose in the letter is to lead us to the realisation that dawned on him and other apostles when they came to believe in Jesus Christ. That God sent his Only Begotten Son, who is Life, to become man and live among us blew their minds. This is the real meaning of love, and what God is; namely, Love. “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God. We ourselves have known and put our faith in God’s love towards ourselves. God is love, and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him.” There is no way anyone can understand love and live it without an encounter with God, who is love. Our sinful condition made it impossible for us to have the needed encounter through creation. God sent his Son to make it easy for us to encounter his love and be inflamed with his love, which is to have the Holy Spirit. Because God made us for this purpose, to be a temple of his Holy Spirit, we are well suited for love. The problem is that we love wrongly, and the wrong things. Since the love of creatures can never illuminate the temple of God that we are, we walk in darkness and do not really know what love is like. John confirms this when he writes: “In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love: because to fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love.”

Subsequently, what proves we do not know the essence of love is that we are all afraid. We are afraid of the unexpected, the future, and so on. These are proofs of our ignorance of God and ignorance of love, since God is love. The apostles were not exempt from this fear, for they were afraid when he came to them walking on the sea. “He could see they were worn out with rowing, for the wind was against them, and about the fourth watch of the night, he came towards them, walking on the lake. He was going to pass them by, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they had all seen him and were terrified.” We are afraid of so many things in our lives due to our lack of faith and little knowledge of God’s love for us, which he has shown in sending his Son in our nature for our salvation. Until we come to a deep comprehension of God’s love for us in Christ, we will continue to suffer this fear of the unknown. Only perfect love drives out fear, and perfect love comes with knowledge of God, only accessible through Jesus Christ. Hence, there is no other way of growing in the love of God or our understanding of his love for us than frequent and consistent meditation on the mystery of Jesus Christ. This is the sumptuous meal the Church serves us this Christmas season. Let us eat with open minds and hearts, for Saint Mark says the apostles were afraid because of closed minds. “They were utterly and completely dumbfounded, because they had not seen what the miracle of the loaves meant; their minds were closed.

Let us pray: O God, who bestow light on all the nations, grant your peoples the gladness of lasting peace and pour into our hearts that brilliant light by which you purified the minds of our fathers in faith. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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