6TH Sunday of Easter Year B
Acts 10:25-26.34-35.44-48 1 John 4:7-10 John 15:9-17
Theme: God is Love
Today is the sixth Sunday of Easter Year B. In our readings we are told that God is love. Today we are encouraged as children of God to imbibe the culture of love that is presented to us on this Sunday liturgy. My brothers and sisters in Christ, when you look at the three readings we have today, we see the depth of God’s love for humanity. In the first reading of today, we see Peter breaking the barrier that separates the Jews from the Gentiles. He visits the house of the centurion Cornelius, a pagan. While reaching out to Cornelius, the Holy Spirit manifests his power and confirms his word. This points out the fact that God goes beyond frontiers and has no favourites.
From the foregoing, we see with God there is no partiality. By implication, we should learn from our father to be impartial, to build bridges instead of walls. This St. Paul exemplified when he breaks the barrier that separates the Jews from the Gentiles. Today, the Gentiles are given the same privilege enjoyed by the Jews. Like Paul, let us break the barriers that are there because of ethnicity, race, social status and colour in communities. Let us break all these barriers because these barriers do not help us to enjoy peace, joy, and happiness. They rather create room for hatred, division, bitterness, wars, and unnecessary rivalry. Today Peter and Paul give us examples that are worthy of emulation. In the example given to us by Peter, we see the depth of God’s love for you and I and that is why on this day in a very special way we are invited to imbibe this culture of love because we are children of God, and partakers of God’s love. Our world needs this love. If this love is practiced in our human relationships, in our actions, we can be rest assured that our lives will be better for it.
Our society is full of anger, is full of hatred and bitterness. It is full of division because there is lack of love. Today’s liturgy encourages us to embrace the unconditional love that made Jesus decide to come and die for us, even while we were sinners. That is why Jesus calls us his friends. He calls us his friends because he does not see us as anything less. My brothers and sisters, why do we find it difficult to also live out this love in our lives? In the world in which we live, one of the words that have greatly been misused is the word love. We have reduced love to emotional passion. We have reduced love to what it ought not to be. But today’s liturgy encourages us, and invites us to perfect love, unconditional love that comes from God alone.
Love entails self-giving. If we are willing to do it, you can be rest assured that the commissioning that Jesus talks about will be practiced in our lives and we will bear fruits that will last. We must try as much as possible to go out of the self to give God a chance in our lives. To be ready to be selfless, to empty ourselves, and encourage all that will promote life. The emphasis is about loving perfectly and loving unconditionally. Let the love that we enjoy be radiating such that everybody around us begins to experience it in our relationship with them. You can be rest assured that if we can do this our society will become a better place, the world in which we live will become a better place. We pray that God will grant us the grace to cooperate with him so that we will bear fruits, fruits that we will last. Peace be with you!