“A person can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends” (John 15:13-14)
Every sentence of today’s Gospel (John 15: 9-17) is an invitation to deep reflection and transformation.
It is about the love between Jesus and his Father, shared between Jesus and his disciples and shared among each of us. It is not a bond of love, but better expressed as “a moving sea between the shores of our souls” (Kahlil Gibran).
St. Eugene understood the power of this “moving sea” when, in 1830, he insisted that
“Charity is the pivot on which our whole existence turns.”
Repeated again on his deathbed:
“Among yourselves, charity, charity, charity.”
Today let us focus on this moving sea of God’s love overwhelming us. The pandemic bombards us with so many powerful forces – but nothing can take away the power of the overwhelming love of the one who gave his life for us, his friends.
As I sit here I begin to sing with in me John Michael Talbot’s Only in God – “he only is my Rock, my strength and my salvation… My stronghold, my Saviour I shall not be afraid at all… I shall not be moved…”
What a powerful image of love as being a sea between the shores of our souls – how we connect and are joined together. Still with me the ever-powerful and consoling thought of being anchored within the heart of Jesus. We are in Him and Him in us. And the image changes yet again, flowing as it were to Him who is our harbor, where we come home to and from which we are sent out, only to be drawn in again.
When I Google the word ‘charity’ it is only in the archaic sense of the word that the word love appears. It is only in love that a person gives their life for a friend; whether we be on a pond, a river or the ocean. Big or small, it is the love of friends that carry us and keeps us afloat.