Sixth Sunday of Easter (May 13^th 2012)    

Gospel: John 15:9-17

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Questions raised by this passage from the Gospel

1 Is love an act of the will? Does it arise from instinct? Or is it something else that goes beyond these two alternatives?

2. In what way can love be thought of as a language that can only be learned when we "hear" it first from others?

3. Do I think of love as something that happens between two equals?

4. What does Jesus mean when he tells us to "remain in his love"?

  

Is love a determined act of the will, or does it arise spontaneously from instinct?

The times we live in are filled with misconceptions about love. In centuries past there was a tendency to focus on the effort, self-discipline and resolution that true love requires. Sometimes Christian speakers still talk about love of this kind today. But the greatest tendency nowadays is for people to focus on the spontaneous character of love. Love is not genuine, we are told, unless it is unforced and springs naturally from within us. This discussion takes us onto risky ground. Is love something that requires an act of the will and steely determination? Or is it like a ship on the high seas that effortlessly goes wherever the wind takes it? If love happens to arise within me, then it arises, but if it doesn't, then I cannot force it? These approaches to an understanding of love stand at two poles, and the problem with them is that the human being is more than just free will, and is more than just instinct and emotion.

Authentic love does not come from within us but from somewhere else

The shortcomings of the above attempts to understand love are brought into relief by the Gospel passage that we are considering this week. The text repeatedly proclaims a particular message: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love". The problem with our approaches to love is that we try to understand it as something that comes from within us. Whether it arises from an act of our will, or springs from natural instinct, it is still thought of as something that originates in ourselves. But the human being is not the origin of love! He may well have a natural predisposition in his heart to love, but love, above all things, is something that must enter into him from outside. Just as a new language cannot be learned unless it is first heard, love cannot be expressed unless one has first "heard" it from others.

Love is not a "horizontal" act between equals in which we show favour to those who show favour to us

In the Gospel passage, Jesus says, "Remain in my love". There is only one sure source from which we can learn how to love in an authentic way. "Love each other as I have loved you". The fact of having been loved by him - this is the sure fount from which we learn how to love. Jesus has the capacity to generate love because he is love. We cannot learn how to love as long as we think that love is something that is done on a horizontal level. In other words, love does not consist in the lover and the beloved exchanging love in equal measure. It is easy to love those who love us back or treat us well. But genuine love is that which is present when one finds oneself confronted by a defect in the other, when one encounters opposition, error, poverty, sin. Love is an unconditional response towards someone who is not behaving advantageously towards me. Who have I ever loved in my life in this way? Who have I ever forgiven?

In order to be able to love in a genuine way then we must remain in His love

We are all hoping to stumble upon people who have genuine love in their hearts. Whether it is in a marriage partner, or in our colleagues at work, or in the people we work with in the church, we are all longing to encounter people who are willing to give themselves without asking anything in return. Love of the horizontal sort between equals is not what we are really seeking, so why think that it is sufficient for me to love in this way, giving only in the same measure as I receive? In order to be capable of this non-horizontal love, the ability to love those who have offended us, then we must pass through the Lord Jesus. I need to remain in his love. I need to look constantly at the way that he has loved me, contemplate continually in my heart the way that he has treated me. I can't speak for the readers, but I know that I certainly haven't been treated by God according to merit. If God treated me as I deserve, then I would have been punished severely, something the Lord has not done. He has shown only patience and mercy towards me.

Remaining in His love is a humbling experience

There is something humbling about remaining in God's love and we shouldn't try to overlook this point. To be in the presence of the God who loves us is to be with someone who has given us everything and to whom we have given nothing in return. When we go to the house of a friend, we tend to bring something with us, because we feel we have to give something in return for their hospitality. It is uncomfortable to believe in the unconditional giving of God, to believe that we have been loved in a scandalously unconditional way. To remain in his love, however, requires that we face up to this uncomfortable fact. We tend to be egoistic even in our relationship with God. We want to be on level terms with him. There is a pain involved in being pardoned, because the fact of being pardoned makes us contemplate our misdeeds.

Our ability to love derives from the fact that He loved us first

Whoever is frustrated at their inability to love others must cease thinking that they can ever produce love by themselves. They must adhere firmly to the One who loves them. When a marriage is in crisis, it is often futile to focus on the problem at the level of the relationship between the two spouses. Each spouse should seek out for themselves the source of unconditional love, and it is only then, when they are filled with this love, they are capable of placing themselves before the sins or defects of the other spouse. We are not asked simply to love each other, but to love each other as He has loved us. It is not sufficient for us to love, but to love because we have been loved.

            Will it ever happen that the church will grow into a people of God who love - not because they are so well-adjusted and secure in themselves - but because they have gratitude in their hearts for the way that they have been loved? Will the day ever come when we begin to love because we are responding to love and not because we are trying, grotesquely, to produce it by our own means? The source of our capacity to love must be the constant contemplation of the infinite patience of God and the cross of Christ. We must remain in front of him, with bleeding hearts, contemplating his love. We have been loved in a way that we have not merited, and in a way that we will never pay back. Let us try to do what we can. It will always be precious little, and thank heavens for that!