‘Love’ – one of the most used and abused words in the whole of the English language, and yet it is unmistakably the theme of today’s Eucharist. When we see a film or television programme, when we hear people singing on the radio, the subject is very often ‘love’. Even in the church, we speak frequently about love. In fact, as Oliver sings in the musical based on Charles Dickens’ story, “Where is love?” And what is love?

According to today’s Second Reading the centre of all living is love. It is not only the centre of Christian living but needs to be at the centre of any kind of life.

Our Christian faith should not be just seen merely as a religion, something tacked on to an otherwise secular life, which in most other respects is the same as everyone else’s. Our Christian faith is a vision of how a human life should be lived in all its fullness. It teaches us how to be a real person. I think it was St Irenaeus who said a very long time ago that “The glory of God is a person fully alive”.  And a person is only fully alive when full of love, because such a person then best reflects the God who IS love.

It would be well at this point to define exactly what we mean by the term “love”. The Greek word that John uses in his gospel and in the three letters attributed to him is agape. The Christian writer, C.S. Lewis wrote a small book entitled “The Four Loves” in which he discusses four different ways of loving. The first of these is eros, which is physical love, the love of young lovers, the love of Romeo and Juliet. The second is filia, which in a way is the highest form of love.  It is the love of friendship, is essentially mutual and shared, and touches every aspect of a person’s being, expressing itself in a total transparency through intimacy, affection and perhaps sexually. It covers marriage and all other genuinely close relationships. To experience such a relationship is one of the great blessings of life. The third love mentioned by Lewis is prauths, sometimes translated as ‘gentleness’ and, less happily, as ‘meekness’ (as in “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”). It suggests someone who is unassuming, undemanding and totally submissive to what God wants but also warm and caring.

Finally, agape describes an unconditional love which reaches out to others, without expecting anything in return. Such is the love of God for his creation . God’s love is poured out in abundance on every single creature, and it continues to flow out whether there is a response or not. This is the love which the father in the story of the Prodigal Son shows to the wayward young man, who has gone far away, and wasted all of his father’s money on a life of debauchery.  It may come as a shock to realise and appreciate that the love of God for the Mother of Jesus and for the most immoral person you could ever imagine is exactly the same!  God is love; it is his very nature; he cannot not love.  What then is the difference between Mary and some depraved person?  It is in the response.  Mary listened to Jesus. “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it,” Jesus once said, referring to his mother.  Mary said an unconditional ‘Yes’ to God at her annunciation. She opened her heart to the agape of God. 

It is that agape which we, too, are supposed to have.  It is this love that enables us to love our enemies, and want to be reconciled with them.  We are not asked to love them with eros or filia – that would not make sense.  To love them with agape is to want the very best for them, to want them to reform, to be changed, to be healed of hate and negativity.

Therefore, John says in today’s gospel, “Wherever there is love, there is God”. He does not say, “Wherever there are Christians, there is God” or “Wherever there is a Christian church, there is God”. But, wherever there is a person filled with real agape – love for others, God is there.  That is the meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan.  He was called “good”, not because he was a religious person, but because he reached out in compassionate love for someone who was supposedly his enemy.  So we can find agape, and therefore God at work, in a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Jew, or whatever.  Maybe that person has no religious faith at all. He or she may be an agnostic, an atheist, or even a communist!

Wherever in the world there is truth, compassion, justice, true freedom and peace, God is most certainly there!

Maybe we have been baptised, maybe our families have been Christian for a long time, perhaps we go faithfully to church every Sunday, perhaps we are careful in our keeping of all of the Ten Commandments, yet if we do not really love and reach out in solidarity to our brothers and sisters, whoever they are and wherever they are, we do not have God’s life in us.  Paul put it well when writing to the Christians of Corinth: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing”.

God loves us all unconditionally, but yet that love is not in us if we are not passing it on to others.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us just one commandment.  He does not say, “Love Jesus, or love God as I have loved you”. No, he says, “If you want to be my disciple, then you must love one another, as I have loved you.”  If we really love our brothers and sisters, including strangers and even enemies, we do not have to worry if we love God. But, if we do not love everyone unconditionally, then there is no other way we can claim to love Jesus.  We need to love those God loves (with agape) and as I said a few moments ago, God loves every single person without exception, even the most wicked!

So we do not really have to worry and ask, “Is it a sin to think, say or do such a thing?” Or, “Does the Church allow me to do this?” Rather, let me put it this way: “When I think, say or do such and such, am I really a loving person?”  In one way, to be a Christian is in essence terribly simple. We do not need to study in a University, or a Theological College.  If we really love people as Jesus loves us, then we will definitely graduate – and with honours too!

In practice, of course, it is not remotely so easy.  We need to learn slowly how to love people unconditionally.  Our lower instincts and the prevailing culture around us think differently. Yet, we need to learn that the way of Jesus is in fact more in tune with our deeper nature.  It is more human to love than to hate, yet we often excuse our outbursts of anger or hatred as being “only human”.  Deep down, we all want to love people. We do not like to hate, and hating does terrible things to our minds and our bodies.  We much prefer people to be friends rather than enemies!

Yet, because of our past experiences, the influence of parents and other people around us, the pressures of our society and our traditions, we often do not know how to love, do not know how to forgive, and do not know how to be reconciled.

The love that Jesus speaks about is very different from the love of the pop songs, or much of the so-called ‘love’ on the TV, and in the movies. Sometimes when we love, we will be very happy.  But sometimes loving the poor, the sick, and the criminal will not be at all easy – love costs, love hurts! If we have to look after a relative who is close to dying, it can be a very painful experience indeed, especially if that patient is difficult or unresponsive to our attentions. But that is the very nature of love!

Love is not a question of keeping rules and commandments.  Love is a way of life.  It is an internal attitude, which influences every single thing we think, or say, and do.

The love of a Christian needs to be unconditional.  Sometimes people will love us in return; sometimes they will not.  On occasion, even though we want to love people, they may reject us.  If they do so, we need not necessarily think that we have done wrong.  When people cannot return genuine love, it is they and not we who have the problem.  Sad to say, not everyone is capable of loving.  All the more reason then why we need to reach out to them.  People often learn to love by being loved!

The most important thing in life is not to be very clever, successful, rich, or famous… The most pressing need is to be someone who really loves.  When we genuinely love others, there will always be some who cannot reciprocate, but there will be others who will readily respond in kind. And it just may be that our love has empowered them to be loving too.

To be able to reach out in love and to experience being loved is possibly God’s greatest gift to humankind.  Let us pray then that we might be blessed with this virtue in all its fullness, both now and until the end of our lives.  Amen.