5th Sunday Easter - Year B

It has been pointed out that when all is said and done, love boils down to a question of giving.  It is a question of self-giving.  It’s a question of forgiving.  And it’s a question of thanksgiving.  Today’s readings invite us to give ourselves in love.

Jesus describes a particular kind of love in today’s gospel (Jn. 15:9-17) He says, “Love one another as I love”.  Again He says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”.  This assurance was clearly and irrevocably enunciated in Jesus’ gift of Himself on the cross.  The fact of Jesus’ great and incomparable love stands as a challenge to those who would call themselves his disciples.  They are called similarly to lay down something of themselves, for love’s sake.

Peter for example (Acts 10, 1st reading), had to lay down his prejudices when he was directed by the Spirit to go to Cornelius’ home and to accept him and his household as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. In today’s second reading (1Jn. 4:7-10), there is an indirect suggestion that believers must lay down hatred, suspicion and mistrust so as to love one another as God loves.

Anglican author and missionary to India, Amy Carmichael (1867-1951) has described the laying down quality of love to which believers are called as  “Calvary Love”.  In an article by the same title, Carmichael proposes that if I belittle those who I am called to serve, pointing out their weak points in contrast with what I think of as my virtues, then I know nothing of Calvary Love.  If I am content to harbour a hurt although friendship be possible, then I know nothing of Calvary Love.  If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place, then I know nothing of Calvary Love.  If the burdens of others are not mine too and their joys mine, then I know nothing of Calvary Love.  Calvary Love is willing to lay down the self in the service of others.  This is the love to which each of us must aspire.