“Just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:43b,35)

Jesus expects that his followers will imitate his example of love: love one another just as he has loved us. He wants that the virtue of love will be the distinctive remark of his followers. But is it the distinctive mark?

I am not saying that Jesus does not demand love. I am asking if we, Christians are really making love as our distinctive mark. Along the years many made love their
badge and gave their life for their love of God or for their love of neighbor. But are all Christians fulfilling the demand of Jesus?

To love is to put oneself in a very vulnerable position. We need to love even if our love is not reciprocated.  We need to love even those who hate us. We need to love unconditionally. We need to love without expecting anything in return. We need to love also our enemies. We need to love continuously and always and everyone.

Jesus showed us the highest grade of love. He did not die for us when we were already friends with him, but he died for us when we were still unfriendly with him so that we will become friends. He paid the ultimate price on our behalf.

We all know the qualities of the love with which Jesus Loves us, and that we must have for Him and for one another. We can find them in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Today I invite you to re-read what is referred to as: The Hymn of Love, and open your heart to let in this type of love:

“If I could speak all the human and angelic tongues, but had no love, I would only be sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

If I had prophecy, knowing secret things with all kinds of knowledge, and had faith great enough to remove mountains, but had no love, I would be nothing.

If I gave everything I had to the poor, and even gave up my own body, but only to receive praise and not through love, it would be of no value to me.

Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant. Love is not ill-mannered nor does it seek its own interest.

Love overcomes anger and forgets offenses.

Love does not take delight in wrong, but rejoices in truth.

Love excuses everything, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love will never end.

Prophecies may cease, tongues be silent and knowledge disappear…

Now we have faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” (1Cor 13: 1-8, 13)

Let us be honest: if we were to replace the word love with our name, would this passage be still truthful? 

“The Church begins there in the heart of the Father, who had this idea . . . of love.” Pope Francis said in the homily of today’s mass (Apr 24, 2013), and continues: “So this love story began, it is a story that has gone on for so long, and is not yet ended. We, the women and men of the Church, we are in the middle of a love story: each of us is a link in this chain of love. And if we do not understand this, we have understood nothing of what the Church is."  “But how does it increase?” Pope Francis asked himself. “Jesus said simply: like the mustard seed, it grows like yeast in the flour, without
  noise."

 Very often we speak about the Church as if it is something not related to us, although we are Catholics, and say the Church should do this and the Church should do that… and we forget that the  Church is not the building or the administration. It is you and me who profess our faith in God the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

His Holiness Pope Francis refers to it as an idea of love that started in the heart of God the Father. And we are this idea. As a creation of God we are already an idea of his love which He then gave flesh through our parents. As members of His family, the Church, we are again an expression of God’s love and a part of His love story which has not yet ended.

What struck me most in his homily were the words: “We, the women and men of the Church, we are in the middle of a love story: each of us is a link in this chain of love. And if we do not understand this, we have understood nothing of what the Church is.” Do you realize what is the Pope saying? He is saying to us, that you and I are a part of God’s love story, not as spectators, but as participants. And our participation is not that of an extra in a movie, but of a main character. 
 
Although in the church we might have different roles but we are all important in the role that we play. We all have a vital role in this story. If a ring breaks, the whole chain suffers. All rings are important for the chain – no ring can say that it is more or less important because each ring is part of this chain.

When you say that the Church should do this and do that, you are either saying that you should be doing this and you should be doing that, or if you mean to say that the Church not including you, then you have missed the boat. You are supposed to be a part of God’s love story and yet you prefer not to be included in this wonderful experience. You want to be only a spectator sitting on a fence. And I am sorry for you.

It is like that you are invited to a sumptuous dinner, where you will be waited on by the host himself, and you decline the invitation. Yet you stay on the outside of the window of the dining hall looking in at the guests reveling in the host’s love and care. And the host still invites you to join in and you keep declining.

If you are truly in, are you enjoying this experience of love? If you are out, don’t you think that you’re missing the best part?

I would like to begin this feed with a story that I will be using in my homily this week. In a family gathering, a youngster stood up and recited it from memory. It was a beautiful rendition. His words flowed like music. His folks applauded enthusiastically and asked him to do it a second time. He proudly obliged. Then the patriarch stood up. In a cracked and halting voice, he began, "The Lord is my shepherd. There is nothing I shall want..." His family sat there hypnotized till the conclusion. They were too overwhelmed to applaud. One of them later summed up the reaction of all, "The boy knows the psalm, but the old man knows the shepherd."

 On reading this story we might say: But we know who the shepherd is: Jesus. Knowing that Jesus is the shepherd does not mean that you know the shepherd… that you know Jesus. When you buy a cake packed in a colourful box, you can see the picture of the cake on the box; you can see the list of the ingredients and you can imagine that the cake is delicious. You will only know how much delicious it is when you taste the cake; when you experience it.

 It is the same with Jesus. You can get to know who Jesus is from various sources: the Bible, homilies and so on. At this stage you only know who he is like you will know who the Pope is by reading about him, seeing his picture and so on. But still you do not know him, and still you do not know Jesus.

We need to know the shepherd because otherwise we will not really be part of his flock. To belong to his flock is to be able to recognize his voice. Each shepherd used to have a distinctive call and once he uses it, his sheep would gather around him, not because they are afraid of him but because they trust him and they have experienced how much good a shepherd he is.

 We Christians need to experience the love that the Good Shepherd has for each one of us. We need to know him so well that we unconditionally trust his message as well as his promise of eternal life. We need to go beyond what we heard about Jesus and what we learned about him and begin to discover Jesus at the centre of our lives in a profoundly instinctive and trusting manner.

 We have to trust Jesus completely! We do so because we have already experienced his concern and dedication to each one of  us that is we have already experienced his love and care for us. Once we start trusting him we will start following the way of Jesus. This means that we use our freedom and strength to be like Jesus: a loving and caring presence in our world.

 If you were given the option, what would you choose: knowing Psalm 23 or knowing the shepherd?


 

After his resurrection Jesus appears to the apostles on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias. The apostles still didn’t know what’s going to happen to them, and so they went back to their old life: they went fishing but that night they caught nothing. Especially after their experience of Christ, their past life could not give them reassurance. They had nowhere to go. There is no reassurance in life, if Jesus is not present. 

And Jesus appeared to them: “It is the Lord!” and their life started changing. 

There, on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus, for three times asks Peter: “Do you love me?” And Peter answers: “Yes, Lord you know that I love you.” But why three time and getting three similar answers? Was it perhaps, that Peter was being given a chance to undo the damage he did by his triple denial of Christ?

 I think that if one sees the original in Greek, one will realize that something else is happening. In Greek there are several words for the word “love” according to the type of love one is talking about. In this story from John’s gospel, there are two of these words used: ‘φιλειν’ (philein)  meaning to love  someone as a friend and  ‘αγαπαν’ (agapan) to love asChrist loved us, in a heroic way. 

Jesus first asked Peter: ‘αγαπας με?’ (agapas me?) “Do you love me in a heroic way?” and Peter answers: ‘φιλω σε’ (philo
se.) “I love you as a friend.” The second time happened the same. The third time Jesus changes his question and asks: ‘φιλεις
με?’ (phileis me?) “Do you love me as a friend?” and as before Peter answers: ‘φιλω σε’ (philo se.) “I love you as a friend.”

That is what Peter could offer: to love him as the friend he had known for three years. Jesus, out of his tender love and concern about Peter, steps down, as it were, to accept what Peter had to offer at that particular moment. Jesus shows us the same tender
love and concern, and he accepts us with what we have to offer.

In Peter ‘the love as a friend’ eventually developed into ‘heroic love’ but first he had to stop going back into the past and let himself be dragged into the future. The same should happen in us: we have to stop going back to our old life of sin and let ourselves be dragged into the future by the grace of God. 
 
Before us stands Peter, a humbler and wiser man, with a crowing rooster by his side. He is a contrite Peter who was touched by Christ’s compassion and forgiveness. This picture should remind us about our reality: we are sinners, but through the mercy and love of God redeemed sinners. If the compassion of Christ extends to him it extends to me too.  If Christ trusts him to feed his lambs, his sheep, he trusts me too. And Christ is always compassionate. Christ always loves. Christ always extends his the hand of forgiveness. 

Peter’s confession of love is also Peter’s cry for help: Lord, I love you; help my lack of love. This should also be our cry for help to Jesus: “Lord, I love you, help my lack of love.”

“Stay with us, for night comes quickly.” (Luke 24:29)

When Cleophas and his friend, commonly referred to as the Disciples of Emmaus, were returning home disappointed because the one that they had believed in was crucified, buried, some women said that he rose from the dead, but some other disciples went and they did not see him. They had hoped he was the one who will edeem Israel, but… They met Jesus on the way and they did not recognize him.
They felt their hearts filled with ardent desire when he was explaining the Scriptures and yet they did not recognize him and now the darkness of the night was coming quickly.

 “Stay with us…” they invited the yet-unrecognized Jesus. And Jesus entered their home and sat at table with them. He took the bread, said a blessing, broke it and gave each a piece… and then their eyes were opened and recognized him… but now he vanished out of their sight.

Isn’t this also our story? Many a time we think that Jesus is a disappointment because he is not the one we expect him to be. Very often we expect him to be our problem-solver, our healer, our lucky charm, our every need, but not our personal Saviour. And whenever Jesus does not appear as we want him to be, he is a disappointment. He disappoints us or rather we disappoint ourselves. 
 
And notwithstanding our disappointment, very often we will ask him: “Stay with us for the darkness of night is coming quickly.” Stay with us Lord, because we do not know where to put our foot for the next step. We’re surrounded by the darkness of disillusion, of sin, of our egoism and we do not know where to go or to whom.

And Jesus will smile at us and he will tell us they same words he told to the two disciples: “How dull you are, how slow of understanding… (Luke 24:25) did I not give you all that you need? Did I not give you myself in the Eucharist… the breaking of the bread?” And he is right… (as usual, after all).

When we celebrate the Eucharist we listen to the Scripture, we listen to it being explained to us, we break the bread together and this bread has already been changed in the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ and then our eyes should be opened… only if we act on what we hear in the Scriptures and let ourselves be transformed into what we receive when we receive the Eucharist.

Is this happening in our lives? And if not why? 
 
Let me ask you one more question which might help you to answer these other two. Are you becoming a eucharist? Let me put it in other words. First of all the word Eucharist comes from the Greek εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), meaning “thanksgiving”. With this in mind, let me ask you again: Is your life being transformed into a life of thanksgiving to God for what he did, for what he is doing and for what he still has to do for you and through you? Once you start thanking God, you will start realizing that he is not a disappointment and never will be and that with him and without him your life will not be the same.

Realizing this you will start giving him his rightful place in life: the centre of your life and everything turns around him… and your egoism will slowly fade away because you are not anymore the centre of your life. And believe me, with Jesus as the centre of your life, life will start having a new and exciting dimension. Don’t you want to give Jesus a try?

“The stone which the builders rejected has become the corner stone.”  (Psalms 118:22)

 Jesus Christ uses an image taken from architecture to refer to himself. He is the cornerstone. We first find this image in Psalm 118, and Jesus refers to it, among others, in Matthew (Matt 21: 42). Later also St. Peter uses it in one of his sermons which we find in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 4: 11-12), and we find it still in the Letter to the Ephesians and in the First Letter of St. Peter. 

First of all what is the cornerstone? The cornerstone, sometimes even referred to as foundation-stone is that fundamental stone that structurally holds the entire building together! And Jesus presents himself as such. Paul and
Peter refer to Jesus as the cornerstone of our faith or of our Church.

 When you think about it, this is a wonderful image of Jesus. He appears to be just another stone, like each one of us and yet He is different. He is made of the same stuff as the rest of us and yet he looks different. In the Letter to the Hebrews, speaking of Jesus as our High Priest, we read: “Our high priest is not indifferent to our weaknesses, for he was tempted in every way
just as we are, yet without sinning.” (Hebrews 4:15) He was different and looked different because He was without sin, and therefore He was a reprimand to the Jewish elders who rejected Him.

But notwithstanding this rejection, God made him the cornerstone, that is, He has become more central to the building than any other stone because He occupies such an important place in the building, that if He is removed, the entire construction will end up a heap of rubble.

Jesus is the cornerstone of our Church. Our faith is built and developed on him. Without him the Church will not be the Church and our faith will not be the same. We as Christians should be built on Christ as our cornerstone and therefore like Christ we have to different.

Different not in the way the Pharisees were. These made their being with the way they dressed. But different in the way that Jesus was. How was Jesus different?

 What made Jesus different was the virtue of love and actually he wanted this to be the distinctive sign of those who belong to him. He saw love as service and put it in practice in the most radical way. “There is no greater love than this, to give one’s life for one’s friend.” (John 15;13), He said, and he gave his life to redeem us.

He redefined love in terms of self-sacrifice and of forgiveness even to your enemies. His love made him honest, frank, real, challenging, imaginative, free-thinking, focused, compassionate, caring, powerful and demanding.

This is the stone that the builders rejected - wrong shape, wrong colour, too difficult, too demanding. But the opinion of the builders was subject to the review of the Chief Architect, who has made this stone, Jesus, the cornerstone to the entire operation.

 Is He your cornerstone?