My dear friends, on this Wednesday after the great feast of the Epiphany, we once again are given some beautiful readings at Mass which turn our attention anew to the theme of God’s love and the need to reciprocate that love in a concrete way by our charity towards others.
In the first reading from the Apostle and Evangelist, Saint John, we are reminded once again that “…if God so loved us, we also must love one another.” If we do this, God remains in us and he brings our love to perfection. You see, It IS about doing. We need to make an effort to love. A lot of opponents to Catholicism will try to make you believe it’s not about doing but solely about being, but that, in and of itself is directly contradictory to what God has revealed. They will get all profound and sophisticated on you and try to convince you it’s solely about being… “be yourself…” or “don’t change anything
about yourself…” or, the other day I saw a sign which said, “you already are the best version of yourself.” And my question is: what is it with these people? Who comes up with this stuff? If you’re already the best version of yourself, don’t go to school, church, the doctor, etc… don’t ever read a book on self-improvement, never try to get healthier… I mean, since when are we already the best version of ourselves and not called to strive towards being the saint that God knows we can be?
The gift that is given to a Christian is always that they can become better in so many ways, while realizing that none of it will ever make God love you more. In other words, we do nothing to win God’s love for us, for he loved us even before we were born. He knew us, even before we were conceived in our mother’s wombs. Our names were already engraved in the palm of his hand, and our face already shined in his heart long before anyone else ever saw it. You know, that cute little face you had when you were still a child that people used to pinch and squeeze? Yes, but even that grown up face now… he has loved all of you, from all eternity and detested the sin that he knew would cause complications in your life but that he permitted nevertheless for your own growth. Therefore, let us also love! This is Saint John’s emphatic admonition.
In the gospel we have another glimpse into the omniscient love of our Lord and how he was always drawing upon it to increase the faith of the apostles. After he feeds the thousands with the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fish, he sends them out on a boat across the lake to meet him on the other side. Now, he knows that he is sending them out into a storm unlike any other. They will see something shocking.. something which will confirm to them that Jesus is not just a “good man” … they will see him walking on the water approaching them as they stood rocking feverishly in the boat, and they can barely believe their own eyes. We can only imagine the thoughts and sentiments running through each one of them. The gospel tells us they’re all terrified at this point. They initially think him a ghost.. but when he gets into the boat with them and the storm suddenly comes to a calm, they are shocked beyond belief.
We are told at the end of the passage that, “They had not understood the incident of the loaves. On the contrary, their hearts were hardened.” This means, that neither did they understand exactly what our Lord just allowed them to experience on the sea that day. Our question is therefore: what did they not understand about the
miraculous feeding of the loaves and why were their hearts hardened?” The truth is they refused to accept Jesus’ assurance that he will always be with them, and that he will always provide. All over the gospel pages that we read, we see him continually trying to impress upon them that they need not worry! And this is what he is saying to us as well: trust in me, and don’t worry. Let’s take him at his word. God bless you, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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