Saturday, May 14, 2016 St. Matthias, Apostle 1st Reading: Acts 1:15–17, 20–26 Gospel: Jn 15:9–17
Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love! You will remain in my love if you keep my commandments, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.“I have told you all this, that my own joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: Love one another as I have loved you! There is no greater love than this, to give one’s life for one’s friends; and you are my friends, if you do what I command you.“I shall not call you servants any more, because servants do not know what their master is about. Instead
I have called you friends, since I have made known to you everything I learned from my Father.“You did not choose me; it was I who chose you and sent you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. And everything you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.“This is my command, that you love one another.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
A husband betrays his wife by courting a neighbor. When caught he explains: “Doesn’t the Bible command us to love our neighbor?” He got the Bible wrong! The love commandment is the highest form of love. What the husband wants to indulge in is self-centered love. King Herod loved Herodias this way, and he had to kill a prophet to sustain the relationship.
The highest form of love seems beyond reach to many. The higher they climb the ladder of love the stronger human weaknesses pull them down. Some have arisen to resume the climb while others have given up because repeated falls made them conclude that love in his highest form is impossible to practice. But the lives of saints prove their conclusion wrong.
It is bad enough to fall, it is worse not to rise up at all. There are immediate merits in arising each time we fail in the spirituality of loving. It makes us wise. “There are no mistakes, just lessons to be learned” (The Barbara Streisand Album Higher Ground, 1997). It puts us in step with Christ who did not remain in the tomb but rose to the light of the resurrection. It makes us genuine. The heart is ordained towards loving God and neighbor. Before God revealed himself our ancestors invented gods to love and worship. God had to create Eve because Adam needed someone to love in paradise. When a person gives up loving God and loving another, his heart is locked up with no one to love but itself. Selfishness colors everything that the person does, even the way he interprets the Bible, such as the commandment to love the neighbor.– (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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