Fr. Chris - Sixth Sunday of Easter - Homily

“The Love Inside Our Hearts”

Again, this Sunday our readings continue to define Love, the very foundation of our Christian Faith, as today we also celebrate Peter’s extending Christ’s good news far beyond its Jewish roots into the gentile world where its saving power, the power of the Holy Spirit, quickly restored their souls with the grace of the ‘One’ True God. Scholars have noted this happened before their baptisms, a very important step in the growth of the early Church which illustrates the ‘lively, living, loving’ nature of our faith at work within the world.


Meanwhile, John provides one of the most beautiful definitions of love, love in action, God who is love itself, in our Christian sensibility: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love, does not know God, for God is love.”


John is making it very clear that love is needed for a true understanding of what life is all about, and an understanding of who God is and God’s importance in our life journey. In fact, love is our best teacher.


Christ knew how critical it was for us to learn this importance of love in our life. He illustrates how love is the source of life, that love grows and emanates from one person to the other, just as how the Father has loved and enabled Christ in his ministry, and Christ has loved and enabled us. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love … by keeping my commandments, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. … I am giving you these commands, so that you may love one another.”


Therefore, we are in-turn to share Christ’s love with each other, transforming our communities into lush, vibrant, vast, thriving gardens of love which heal us, and bring us restful peace and sparkling joy. “I have said these things to you, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”


We will experience this exhilarating joy when we practice Christ’s commands to put his love into action: “You are my friends if you do what I command you. I am giving you these commands, so that you may love one another.”


Christ also makes one of the most profound statements of all time regarding the quality, relevance and depth of love living within the heart of God, within our Faith, and within our hearts as Christians, a statement which has echoed from his lips into the annals of history, something he profoundly demonstrated on the cross:
“No one has greater love than this, [than] to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”


We may not ever be called to give up our lives for someone else, but we all have the ability to love, even if it is an inconvenience, even if it means sacrificing our pride, or even if it means offering and showing our love for someone un-loveable.


There is a poem by Mary Dow Brine (1816-1913) called ‘Somebody’s Mother’ [Felleman, Hazel, ed. The Best Loved Poems of the American People. Garden City, NY: Garden City Books, 1936] a favourite my mother often recited. An excellent example of love in action, I would like to share it with all the mothers, children and spouses in our community in honour of ‘Mother’s Day’:


The woman was old and ragged and gray;
And bent with the chill of the Winter's day.
The street was wet with a recent snow
And the woman's feet were aged and slow.
She stood at the crossing and waited long,
Alone, uncared for, amid the throng
Of human beings who passed her by
Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eyes.


Down the street, with laughter and shout,
Glad in the freedom of "school let out,"
Came the boys like a flock of sheep,
Hailing the snow piled white and deep.
Past the woman so old and gray
Hastened the children on their way.
None offering a helping hand to her –
So meek, so timid, afraid to stir
Lest the carriage wheels or the horses' feet
Should crowd her down in the slippery street.


At last came one of the merry troop,
The happiest laddie of all the group;
He paused beside her and whispered low,
"I'll help you cross, if you wish to go."


Her aged hand on his strong, young arm
She placed, and so, without hurt or harm,
He guided the trembling feet along,
Proud that his own were firm and strong.
Then back again to his friends he went,
His young heart happy and well content.


"She's somebody's mother, boys, you know
For all she's aged and poor and slow,
And I hope some fellow will lend a hand
To help my mother, you understand,
If ever she's poor and old and gray,
When her own dear boy is far away."


And ‘somebody's mother’ bowed low her head
In her home that night, and the prayer she said
Was "God be kind to the noble boy,
Who is somebody's son, and pride and joy!"


May God continue to keep you well and safe with peace and joy in his embrace.


Happy Mothers’ Day everyone.


– Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario