6th Sunday of Easter
Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48
1 Jn 4:7-10
Jn 15:9-17
Love one another, as I love you
“I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow.” – William Blake
Possibly the most difficult commandment in the Bible, is Christ’s call for us to “love one another, as I have loved you” (John 13: 34-35). The older I get, the farther this seems from my grasp. Maybe it is age. Maybe my patience is no longer what it used to be. Maybe I am fatigued. Whatever it is, I find it very difficult these days, to ‘love one another’. I would sooner not engage, than have to wade into the muck of messy relationships. And so lately, I have found myself spending more time on my own. I guess that’s how our circles shrink. We let our anger get the better of us, we give in to our weariness, and before we know it, solitude becomes our default setting. The opposite of ‘love’ isn’t hate. It’s indifference. We cease to care and that’s the end of it.
I suppose my one saving grace, is that “God shows no partiality… whoever fears Him and acts uprightly, is acceptable to Him”. I don’t always act ‘uprightly’, but I still fear God. And I feel His disappointment, whenever I act counter to what is acceptable to Him. Like right now, for instance. I know that God is not ok with me choosing solitude over engagement with people, even the people who drive me to anger. St Thomas Aquinas defined ‘love’ as “willing the good of the other”. That is all well and good, but it doesn’t tell us how to manage when the people we ‘love’ refuse to do what is good for them. What are we supposed to do then? Continue to engage, even enable their bad behaviour by pandering to them? Have it out in a shouting match, in the hope they’ll see good sense? Or give up, give in to our weariness, and leave them to the consequences?
“Love one another, as I love you” (John 15: 12-15). Christ really was superhuman. How did he continue to love despite the ingratitude, the pridefulness, and the general lack of self-awareness, displayed by the disciples in his final hours? The bible reads differently now that I am an adult, and have had some life experience; now that I have learned the value of endurance. Endurance, or more simply put, the tenacity to keep willing the good of the other, despite ourselves. Maybe that is what love is… endurance.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Sharon Soo)
Prayer: We pray for God’s grace to help us endure those whom we love.
Thanksgiving: We give thanks for the Holy Spirit, who helps us to find rest, who inspires us with wisdom and insight, and who salves our weariness.
OXYGEN 
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