💖 HOMILY - MAY 2 💖

First Reading - Acts 15:7-21

Gospel - John 15:9-11

During the discourse of the Last Supper, Jesus teaches his disciples that love is the hallmark and the criterion of Christians. Jesus reminds his disciples that he has chosen them as his friends with a triple mission. First, they are to love others as he has loved them. Second, they are to bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Third, they are to ask God the Father for whatever they need in Jesus’ name.

The criteria of Christian love can be said as following: First, Jesus modifies the Old Testament command from “love your neighbor as you love yourselves” (Lv 19: 18) to “love others as I have loved you.” This means that our love for others must be unconditional, forgiving, and sacrificial. Jesus invites each Christian to be in the inner circle of his friends by obeying his commandments including the new commandment of love. Such friends abide in Jesus, and Jesus abides in them, and their prayers in Jesus’ name will be answered promptly by God the Father. We express our love for Christ by obeying his new commandment of love. Jesus further explains that the real source of Christian joy is the certainty that God loves us. We, too, must be ready to express our love for others by our readiness to die for them as Jesus died for us.

Dear friends, let us remember that true Christian love is costly and painful because it involves sacrifice on our part when we start loving unlovable, ungrateful, and hostile people with Christ’s unconditional, forgiving, sacrificial love. But our Christian call is to love others as Jesus has loved us, and as Jesus loves them.