5th May -6th Sunday of Easter
Dear Parishioners,
‘I call you friends…..love on another’
On this 6th Sunday of Easter, as we approach the feast of our Lord’s Ascension this coming Thursday, we hear Jesus give us his new commandment – love one another. This teaching is united with the way of love that Jesus himself has demonstrated, a love willing to go to the Cross. This becomes the foundation for the Church’s understanding about the meaning of life: we are here to learn about love and to respond in love, to both God and our neighbour. Elsewhere Jesus says ‘Love one another, as I have loved you’. In our tradition this kind of love has also been called ‘charity’. The word ‘charity’ conveys a form of love that is selfless. It’s a way of relating to each other in which our focus is the good and wellbeing of the other person. St. Paul writes that charitable love is patient and kind, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things and never comes to an end. When we consider these qualities of charitable love, we find that God relates to us in each of these ways through Jesus. Through Jesus, God offers us the best friendship possible. Jesus says: ‘I call you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.’ Our ultimate proof of this friendship and love is that Jesus has given his life for us on a Cross so that God can forgive our sins and so that we can share eternal life with him both now and in his heavenly kingdom. The love we show to God comes in our prayer and our worship through the Church, especially the Holy Mass. In our relationships to one another and the wider world, we are given the opportunity to show the quality of our lives in the charitable love we offer to our neighbour. Let us reflect, today, upon the invitation Jesus has given us to enter into a true friendship with him and live his commandments of love. Let us pray for the desire to give ourselves without reserve, both to the One who is so deserving of all our love and to one another.
God bless you, Fr Martin
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