God Is Love

Tuesday January 4

Tuesday After Epiphany

 

Here comes the great theme of the apostle John, almost like an obsession, both in his letter and in the gospel: God is the origin of all love. For he is love: a love that is giving, a love, as the gospel shows, that is compassionate. Self-communication is the mark of love: within God, from God to people and the world. He gives us his Son, who showed in his person that to love is to give up oneself out of love. And on the part of people, love means also to receive, to be willing to accept love as a pure gift, both from God and from one another.

 

First Reading: 1 John 4:7-10

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.

 

Gospel: Mark 6:34-44

When Jesus arrived, he saw this huge crowd. At the sight of them, his heart broke—like sheep with no shepherd they were. He went right to work teaching them.

When his disciples thought this had gone on long enough—it was now quite late in the day—they interrupted: “We are a long way out in the country, and it’s very late. Pronounce a benediction and send these folks off so they can get some supper.”

Jesus said, “You do it. Fix supper for them.”

They replied, “Are you serious? You want us to go spend a fortune on food for their supper?”

But he was quite serious. “How many loaves of bread do you have? Take an inventory.”

That didn’t take long. “Five,” they said, “plus two fish.”

Jesus got them all to sit down in groups of fifty or a hundred—they looked like a patchwork quilt of wildflowers spread out on the green grass! He took the five loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread to the disciples, and the disciples in turn gave it to the people. He did the same with the fish. They all ate their fill. The disciples gathered twelve baskets of leftovers. More than five thousand were at the supper.

 

Prayer

Lord God, our Father,
you took the initiative of loving us
before we could ever love you,
for love is your name
and you are a God of people.
Help us to recognize this love
become flesh in Jesus your Son.
Let him stir and transform
the very depths of our hearts,
that we too may offer to you and to people
all the love of which you have made us capable
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

A vocation to be the image of the face of God
People followed Jesus in large numbers because he had compassion on them. Compassion and empathy are attitudes of heart, that results from love. It was his love led him to be involved in the lives of people. The Lord is always there, loving first: he is waiting for us.
When Andrew brings Peter to Jesus and Jesus looks at him and says to him: ‘Are you Simon? You shall be Peter’. It was as if Jesus was waiting for him with a mission. The same happens when Zacchaeus, who was small, climbs the tree to have a glimpse of Jesus, who passes by. Jesus stops, lifts his eyes and says: ‘Zacchaeus, come down, I want to go to supper at your house’. Zacchaeus, who wanted to meet Jesus, realizes that Jesus had been waiting for him.

The act of feeding the 5000 is an act of love and compassion. The way Mark describes act will be repeated during the last supper when Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to his disciples. The whole life of Jesus is in fact a repetition of what he does at the multiplication of the bread. He took on the form of flesh, lived his life to comfort the broken lives of his people, suffered and gave up his life for the life of the world. Ever since, multitudes are being fed on his body and blood.

And he does the same with our lives too: He TAKES us as we are, imperfect, sinful, and selfish. He BLESSES us, together with all our brokenness and sufferings. He holds us in his love and compassion. And when we respond to his love, He GIVES us to others to witness his love and forgiveness!

That is quite a mission; this act of surrender that Jesus asks of us is in ‘remembrance of him’. This act of love, of giving, sharing, helping is not easy. It is often not appreciated, but it is what we are asked to do as Christians. We are to bring Christ to others, as witnesses to his love and mercy.
Sharing loaves to the hungry may sound clichéd for others, but for the starved, it’s a miracle. Today, time is the most precious commodity in the market. When we decide to share a part of our time to help someone in need and in despair to comfort them- we are sharing our loaves of bread with them. Calling up a relative or friend and asking them of their well-being is also sharing our bread for the hungry.
Let us be the images of the face of God face in sharing what our brothers and sisters need in their struggles.

 

Video available on Youtube: A vocation to be the image of the face of God