Sunday, April 24, 2016
5th Sunday of Easter 1st
Reading: Acts 14:21-27 2nd Reading: Revelation 21:1-5 Gospel: John 13:31-33, 34-35
When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. God will glorify him, and he will glorify him very soon.
“My children, I am with you for only a little while; you will look for me, but, as I already told the Jews, so now I tell you: where I am going you cannot come. Now I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
Why is love a commandment in Christianity? Can love be legislated? The Family Code of the Philippines made and attempt to legislate love by laying down in Article 68 that couples should live together, observe mutual love, respect and fidelity, and render mutual help and support. But in Ramirez-Cuaderno vs. Cuaderno (12 SCRA 505), the Supreme Court ruled that “except for (financial) support, a court cannot validly issue a decision compelling the spouses to live together, observe mutual love, respect and fidelity. Only the moral obligation of the spouses constitutes the motivating factor for making them observe the said duties and obligations which are highly personal”.
The family Code makes mutual love a duty of couples but allows a wide leeway as to the degree of its exercise. In Christianity, however, Jesus asked his followers to love until death. Obviously extra power is needed! This extra power called grace is available only in God. Jesus gave love as a commandment so that we may stay closer to God as our source of strength.
We cannot fulfill the commandment of love unless we experience the same in God. Not that we have never experienced God’s love. We need to ritualize this love every day so that acknowledging the role of God’s love in our lives we get to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord” and be spiritually compelled to share it to others. We do this ritualization in a most solemn manner at the Eucharistic banquet where we celebrate the love of God in the breaking of the Bread.
The Ramirez-Cuaderno case that says love is highly personal and the motivating force to fulfill it is moral is a good guide in our interpretation of today’s Gospel message. While we are covered by the same commandment of love that bound the Apostles, the compelling force that moves us to fulfill it is not the binding force of law but the moral force urging us to extend to our fellowmen the same love we experience from God. —Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected].
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