6th Sunday Easter - Year B

Love involves three kinds of giving: self-giving, forgiving and thanksgiving.

In today’s gospel Jesus says, “Love one another as I love you”.  And again he says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”.  It has been pointed out that when all is said and done, love boils down to the question of giving.  It’s a question of self-giving.  It’s a question of forgiving.  And it is a question of thanksgiving

Once a political dignitary when he was returning to his hotel suite saw two street children huddled together in the doorway of a vacant building.  The boy was about twelve and the other was a girl of about four, obviously his sister.  The boy had taken off his coat and had put it around his little sister’s shoulders.  And he had taken his wool cap and put it around her feet.  It was a picture he never forgot as long as he lived.  The story dramatizes the self-giving type of love.

Let’s now see how love is also a question of forgiving.  Forgiveness has to be a part of every love relationship, precisely because we are human.  Being human, we sin against one another and hurt one another – even members of our own family.  And for that reason, fathers must be ready to forgive sons.  Sons must be ready to forgive fathers.  Mothers must be ready to forgive daughters and daughters must be ready to forgive mothers.  Brothers must be ready to forgive sisters and sisters must be ready to forgive brothers.  And friends must be ready to forgive friends.  And they must be ready to do this not seven times, but as Jesus said, “seventy times seven times”.  How often we say the Lord’s Prayer, especially the words, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” And how often we say them on Sunday but fail to practice them the rest of the week, even within our own family.  We forget that Jesus himself said: “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions”. Mt. 6.14-15 and so besides self-giving, love also involves forgiving.

The third kind of giving that love involves is thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is especially important when it comes to our love for God.  The one thing everyone is capable of giving God is thanks. When we have nothing else to give to God, we can still give our thanks.  When the news of the end of the First World War came, people took off to drink and celebrate.  But Helen Hayes one of the finest actresses of Hollywood, headed for St. Patrick’s Cathedral to offer up a prayer of thanks to the Lord.  She thought she alone would be there, but when she reached the Cathedral it was so packed that she couldn’t get inside.  She was  forced to offer her prayers on the steps that morning.