Abiding and Loving – The Way to Joy
(Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; 1 Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15:9-17)
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Henri Thoreau once said most people live lives of quiet desperation. What a sad statement! What has happened to our ability to experience joy? Would you like to live a more joyful life?
The liturgy today offers us a way. All we need to is abide in God’s love, love one another and we will experience joy.
The readings mirror the first encyclical of Pope Benedict – they zero in on the core of our faith: God is love. We are to love God back by abiding in his love, and love one another, in the power of the Spirit.
How do we abide in God’s love? The answer is prayer, both devotional and liturgical. It is said the Church breathes with two lungs: one lung is devotional prayer, and the other is liturgical prayer, the prayer of the Church.
Devotional prayer can be private prayer or public devotions like the rosary. Most people are used to “saying prayers.” To truly abide in Jesus’ love, we should strive to deepen our prayer, and move towards a more contemplative kind prayer, listening to God’s word, being sensitive to what God wants to say to us and do within us.
An example of this is the hour of adoration that happens in some churches. A group of faithful parishioners come for a very simple time of singing, silence and prayer of adoration – a beautiful way to abide in God’s love in the Blessed Sacrament.
When I was a young scholastic preparing for priesthood, I chose Adam Exner, now the archbishop emeritus of Vancouver, to be my spiritual director. During our first session, he told me if he was going to direct me, he would have to know me, and asked me to tell him my story. I proceeded to share with him my life story – the first time I had ever done that.
When I finished two sessions later, he told me I needed to work on my relationship with my father and asked me to pray with Isaiah 34:1-7 for a whole month. That passage spoke of God’s love for me, through fire, water and desert, and ended with a statement that shocked me: “You are precious and honoured in my sight because I love you!”
How I needed to hear those words at that critical stage of my life. You see, my father was never able to say those words. He was a workaholic and was never able to show his love for us the way we needed it – he just worked harder. I had reacted by trying to earn his love, and by extension, even God’s love, an impossible task because love cannot be earned – it is a free gift.
There was a deep father hunger in my soul that Fr. Adam discerned. He connected my life with the Word of God in a way that started a healing process for me and turned my life around. He asked me to “abide in God’s love” which was exactly what I needed. I even felt some of that joy Jesus speaks about, as well as hope – a new future was dawning for me because of God’s word.
At the same time, I was entering into the celebration of morning and evening prayer, as well as daily Eucharist. This experience of liturgical prayer, the prayer of the Church, also worked me over. It too was based on listening to God’s Word, especially through the psalms, and on the celebration of God’s loving presence, especially in communion. I was immersed in God’s love through a solid life of prayer and joy began to grow within me.
Jesus is very clear – there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for others. Loving others involves sacrifice, acts of mercy and charity, doing things for others. The late St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta is a prime example of someone who truly abided in God’s Word, and then expressed her love in active ministry, picking up dying people off the streets of Calcutta and giving them a place where they could die with dignity.
Renowned preacher Fr. John Fullenback witnessed her handle a difficult patient who had stumped the efforts of a younger sister. Mr. Theresa simply stared her straight in the eyes for a minute, hugged the girl for a full two minutes, then fed her without any problem. She was a professional in the ways of love, and knew the girl needed to be loved with a hug.
Jesus adds another dimension to loving others, when he states he has revealed to us all that he has learned from the father. That is the element of self-disclosure, trust, fellowship. To be close to God, be closer to people. We need to grow in our ability to trust one another, share our lives with each other, be more transparent to each other, achieve intimacy with trusted others. That is a beautiful way to love another – to achieve intimacy with a trusted other, especially within a committed relationship of marriage, or just plain friendship.
God is love, relationship and family. To achieve intimate union with another human being, is to experience Jesus, and the Trinity in that intimacy. It is there that Jesus will reveal himself to us (John 14:21). To establish a relationship of trust and acceptance is one of the deepest and best ways to love another person.
An example of caring and sharing in this way is Jean Vanier, son of the former governor general of Canada, who started the movement called L’Arche for the mentally challenged. L’Arche provides a home for the handicapped where volunteers live with them as family. He has learned so much from them and shares this wisdom from that experience: “If I am humble, open and honest enough to share my weakness with my brothers and sisters, then that frees them to be humble, open and honest with me, and together we grow.”
To do all this, to abide in God’s love, and to love one another, would be impossible without the gift of the Spirit. It is this same Spirit of Jesus poured out upon the early Church, as Peter discovered in the first reading, that enables us to do as Jesus did – abide in the Father’s love, and love unconditionally and totally.
The Eucharist is first of all an abiding in God’s love through Word and Sacrament. Then we are commissioned, sent out to be Bread for the World, to love the world as Jesus loved it, to give our lives for our brothers and sisters who are hungering for that experience of God’s love.
So, to live a life full of joy, abide in God’s love, and love one another. Pray, care and share, in the power of the Spirit, and you will experience joy.
Thanks for sharing the stories in abiding with Jesus by having love and an establishing a intimate relationship with God. So, we should share our experience with full faith that Jesus Loves us more than ever. Jesus is the Holy Spirit send by God.
We should love one another just like how Jesus has loved us no matter what road we choose to follow . Jesus wants us to show love when we enter into the kingdom and choose to abide in him. This is commandment he kept when the Father chose him to be his son. We also have to follow these commandments when we acknowledge the full experience of Jesus Christ and God. This is how we deepen our faith and when the time is right God will distribute these gifts to you. It depends if he chose you as one of his disciples and apostles to spread the Good News. We should experience the power of joy and happiness when we are with the Risen Lord. Amen. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.
Go out spread the Good News with joy and love as we explain it to people . Gracias! Many Blessings ! Bishop Lavoie
There is one true God and Trinitarian God that we trust and follow for the rest of our lives. He is the one who can perform miracles and heal us from any problems we have everyday. If we believe in false Gods we will remain the same and they always tempt us to do cruel things to gain power and success. Later, we will regret it for what we have done wrong and should we believe God and Jesus Christ . We should abide God with love and know there is only one true God in this world. Amen. Thanks Bishop for proving to us who is God the Father and Jesus Christ.