"God gave us, human beings, FREEDOM, in order to be able to choose to LOVE!"
Jesus tells us something amazing in this gospel passage: just as God his Father loves him, so he loves us! all of us! Isn't that something! And then he says: remain in this love: don't force us to leave you! And you won't force us to leave you IF you keep loving one another the same way that we love you: and that means self-sacrificially!
When we are talking about love here – we are not talking soap opera and Hollywood type love. That kind of love isn't really love at all. Real love is the decision to put the other person first – and to sacrifice what is necessary to keep them first! Anyone who is married knows that is true! Anyone who is ordained knows that is true! Anyone who has even been in the military knows that is true! These are three ways in which other people are meant to be placed first – and ourselves last – so that happiness, and peace, and freedom and joy may be experienced by all! There are other ways too!
And that is exactly what happens: THE MORE WE REALLY AND TRULY LOVE ONE ANOTHER – self-sacrificially – like Jesus did – even to the point of giving our lives for one another, as he did - (as we consider on this 4th of July those who gave their lives, and continue to give their lives in order for our country to be free and happy and at peace) – the more we EXPERIENCE GOD! That is amazing!
And when we experience God, then we want to act like we experience God – as James tells us in the first reading – we want to lead a good life in humility that comes from wisdom: we are not jealous, or selfish, or ambitious; nor do we boast or distort the truth – these things are not gotten from wisdom from above. The wisdom from above is first of all pure (that means uncomplicated and focused on God), then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, with constancy and sincerity – and right-living!
Would that we as individuals, we as family members, we as a society, we as a nation could more earnestly seek and find and give away this wisdom from on high! What a better a better world this would be!
It all begins with us – and our desire to do so: to love as God loves, to experience the joy he wants us to have and to share it; and to be beacons of light for one another in the darkness of the world that seems to be increasing somewhat on a regular basis!
The true Light of the World is Jesus – and he will help us all if we turn to him in prayer! We pray today to him for our nation that it may return to the God-centered values on which it was founded! We are and must remain "one nation, under God" or else we will be no nation at all!
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest, says the Lord.
That God will show his great mercy on our nation that in so many serious ways uses its freedom to turn against him and embrace so many other lesser loves - let us pray one time each the three prayers of the Divine Mercy Chaplet: (please kneel)
Eternal Father, I offer you the body and blood, soul and divinity of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ……
For the sake of his sorrowful Passion….
Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One…
[Jesus, I trust in you!]
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