Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Jesus said at the Last Supper as we heard last week: “If you abide in me, you will bear abundant fruit.” The saddest people in the world have no fruit in their lives. Every Sunday we celebrate the greatest act of his love! Today he keeps speaking about this love and says abide in me, remain in my love. How do we abide with him? Love is something very concrete, not complicated, not pretty words. Jesus says, love the other as I have loved you. So, it has to be something we first experience.
No one can love if he has not first been loved as St. John says. To love is not a demand; you can’t say you ‘have to’ love. If we didn’t experience it, then to say this becomes a huge moralism. To demand someone to love as Christ loves would be horrible. It would not be Christian. A Christian lives virtue without effort. If it takes a great effort than you are not Christian. Love flows from a Christian; forgiveness is shown by a Christian. Jesus Christ did not have to make a big effort to love; it came naturally. Christ only thinks well of you; he doesn’t judge you. If you have to make an effort to think well of the other, than you are not so Christian.
Today the Lord says, abide in my love; love as I have loved you. This love can only be experienced when the Holy Spirit helps us. The Lord loves us, is loving us now and will always love us. A priest was wondering at a First Penance, would this child ever do a second penance? Would it be 20 or 30 years from now. It happens all the time. The priest was thinking to himself what could I say to this kid knowing this might be his last confession? He said to the child, what is your name? Then he told him that even if one day you forget your name don’t ever forget what I am going to tell you now. No matter what you do God will always love you wherever you are and whatever you did and whatever you thought, in whatever situation you find yourself. Promise me you will not forget that. Yes, yes, the kid says!
This is what it means to remain in his love. You have this certainty that at every moment our Lord is loving you, even when things are horrible, and you did something fatal. Be convinced of his love. He is not going to leave you and go to another. He will always love you and always stay with you. This is what it means to abide in his love.
A Christian has to be absolutely conscious of this love of God, to have this experience. He loves you right now despite whatever you have done. How can I realize that I abide in this love? You are no fool and you heard that God loves you hundreds of times. His love is infinite, and we cannot understand that because we are finite; we are very limited. Even the love of a mother for her child is limited. Everything we do is limited. A son’s love for his dad is limited. A psalm says that God’s love last forever; we cannot understand this. We can’t understand it even intellectually. We don’t get the concept of infinite. The fullness of this love is so beyond us, so full, so perfect. Eternal love, infinite love cannot be explained, only experienced.
And to think that you had an experience of this eternal love when you were a disaster, when no one loved you. Even when your spouse did not love you; God loved you. This is God’s love. When you can’t love your husband because he is so proud, so horrible, God still loves you!
Imagine how wonderful it is when the whole world would be judging you, God does not judge you. He loves you. Even when you don’t love yourself, he loves you. The prodigal son when he remembers that he has a father who loves him, even when he is disgusted with himself because he is eating the food that pigs eat, which for a Jew nothing could be worse. Then he discovers this tender love of his father.
The Holy Spirit acts this way. Whenever we sin or even have a bad thought or gossip, we sadden him. We don’t need his help when things are going well, but when we are wicked, we need his help. We need an advocate. When I commit a crime, I need a defense attorney. When I cannot love even myself, because I don’t abide in his love, I need an advocate.
All of our sins come from loving ourselves, all of them. When you love the other, you remain in God’s love, and you are holy because the Lord wants you to be a saint. We are pretty close to Pentecost and close to the promise of the Holy Spirit, who doesn’t just come once a year. He comes to defend us against the enemy, the devil who is always telling us that God doesn’t love you. This is the opposite of what Christ tells us today. The Holy Spirit will always tell us that God loves you. The devil says well if he loved you, you could then eat from any tree in the garden. He envies you because if you eat that forbidden fruit you will be like him. We often believe this lie of the devil.
What can we do when we don’t believe in this love of God. The Holy Spirit has to come when we believe the devil and tell us, ‘don’t believe him, he is the father of lies.’ Our Lord loves you, look at the cross for proof of his love. Remember in the desert when the Jews were bitten by the snakes and they looked at the bronze serpent and were cured of that poison. In the same way Christ was lifted up; this is the proof of his love. He says to us tonight: abide in me, stay with me tonight and always.