Well, in the last five weeks we’ve had Easter Sunday, Divine mercy Sunday, Good Shepherd Sunday, Mother’s Day Sunday, and today, our Gospel reading gives us the chance to perhaps name today, Love Sunday. “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Earlier this afternoon, I was able to celebrate a wedding for a young bride and groom, Eddie and Anna. So, I’d like to reflect on Christian marriage, on this “Love Sunday”, drawing upon it lessons for all us us, whether you are married, single, widowed, a consecrated religious or a priest.
Leading up to the wedding, I met with this young couple for about 10 months of marriage preparation. So for 10 months, off and on, we discussed many topics concerning healthy, holy, and happy marriage: the need for open and honest communication, the need for patience, forgiveness, prayer, engagement in the life of the Church, being open to the children God desires to bring into their new family, and what it means that Marriage is one of the Sacraments of the Church instituted by Our Lord to confer grace.
But the reason for all the preparation, meeting with the priest, the pre-cana day, the prayer, all that effort, is because of our hope that the two of them will be able to share a life of happiness and holiness—a marriage filled with grace and love.
That word, “love” is found all throughout the marriage liturgy. Will you love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live.
St. Paul writes about that word “love” in his first epistle to the Corinthians, and many couples choose this passage for their nuptial mass. Love. “Love is patient, love is kind, it bears all thing, endures all things, it is not rude, it is not pompous, it forgives all things.” Paul says.
What is love? For Paul, and really throughout the Bible and Christian Theology, Love isn’t a just an emotion. Nor is love so mysterious that we can’t say anything about. St. Paul says plenty and so does our Lord.
For Paul, for Christians: Love is an action, it’s a choice, it’s pursuit that requires effort. Love is a choice to be patient when we feel the claws of impatience raking across our souls, love is choosing to be kind when selfishness rears its ugly face, love is enduring and persevering in doing what is right and just when we want to give up, love is being humble when we want to be pompous, love is forgiving when we want to brood over injury.
In the Gospel, when the Lord Jesus says, “love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength” he’s not talking about making sure that we stir up some pious fleeting emotion toward God every once and a while, or for an hour on Saturday evening or Sunday. He’s saying that Christians need to put God at the center of our work, our decisions, how we treat people, our marriages, everything—every conversation, every interaction, our free time, everything.
It was love that led the Lord to the Cross-the choice to serve God for the greater good, out of the deepest, most profound care for good of our souls. The willingness to bear unfathomable suffering for our redemption. There is no greater love than to lay down your life for another. Talk about an action. The Lord shows us precisely what love looks like, when he lays down his life for his on the cross, to save us from hell. Love requires effort, selflessness, often sacrifice.
And St. Paul goes so far to say that if you are going throughout life without this type of Christ-like love, then you are like a clashing cymbal, in other words, you are just going through life making a bunch of noise—our lives are sadder and emptier without love.
And I hope that none of you here are just clashing cymbals—jumping from pursuit to pursuit, relationship to relationship without God’s love filling your soul. And if you are, I invite you to consider another way, a timeless way, the way of Christ, the way of true love.
This is the Love the world needs more of…not just fuzzy feelings, but Christians, doing what is best for each other and our neighbor. Setting good Christian example for one another, praying for one another, making sacrifices for one another and the mission of the Church. As the Lord says in the gospel today, this is how all will know that you are my disciple, that you love one another.
Love requires effort: to pray when we have other things to do, to go to Sunday Mass when we’d rather sleep in, bringing your kids to church when it’s just easier for everyone to stay in their pajamas all day. It takes effort, right? to study the Bible when we could be sitting in front of the TV or playing the newest game on our smartphones, to strive to give up habitual sins when it’s just easier to justify our selfish actions, being honest in business when it’s easier and more profitable to cheat your client, it requires effort, love requires effort, looking past the faults of others to do what’s best for them, as I would do for myself.
But this is why weddings are so joyful for the Church. It is so joyful for us to see Bride and Groom standing before God’s altar, in front of their family, and friends, and brothers and sisters in Christ, to say, this is the person I choose to lay down my life for, this is the person I hope will love me as Christ loved me. This is the person I will sacrifice my life for like no other, who I will pray with and pray for like no other, who I will work with hand-in-hand to serve the needs of the poor and the needs of the Church like no other, who intend to work together to become instruments of God’s love in this dark, cruel, cold world. For as Pope Benedict would say, "love is the light, and in the end the only light that can illuminate a world grown dim."
This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Love is a choice. And the more effort we pour into love the more rewarded we will be in, in this life, and the life to come. May pour our time, talent, and treasure into this choice, to love every minute of every day for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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