Our Gospel today – John 15:9-17 – contains nine explicit references to love. Together they emphasize a profound and practical truth: Being a disciple of Jesus is being in love. The first of these references sets the context for the others: The Father’s love for Jesus. In his First Letter John spells this out: “God is love . . . all love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God . . . God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us” – see 1 John 4:8-10.
Jesus says: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love”. What is God’s purpose in all this? “So that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete . . . I do not call you servants any longer . . . but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father . . . I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last”.
We could sum up Jesus’ words: “Just let us love you!” This is pure gift. We cannot merit this love, we are not expected to earn it. But we can make a choice to accept the gift and live in such a way that we enable this love to take hold in our hearts. That is in fact hard work! It demands constancy and endurance. However, as we allow ourselves to be drawn evermore deeply into being in love, all else will take care of itself.
This is the mystical heart of our faith. Listen to St John of the Cross: “The soul's center is God. When it has reached God with all the capacity of its being and the strength of its operation and inclination, it will have attained its final and deepest center in God, it will know, love, and enjoy God with all its might. When it has not reached this point (as happens in this mortal life, in which the soul cannot reach God with all its strength, even though in its center – which is God through grace and his self-communication to it), it still has movement and strength for advancing further and is not satisfied. Although it is in its center, it is not yet in its deepest center, for it can go deeper in God” (St John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, 1:12 – ICS Publications).
Until and unless enough Christians discover this mystical heart, until and unless it becomes the actual heart of the Christian life in the Church, talk about renewal and reform in the church will remain just that – talk. Why would we not want this gift of God’s love with all our minds, our hearts and our souls? What and where are the obstacles?
