We have turned one of our bedrooms into a little chapel and at the beginning of this week as I was walking back to my room to go to bed as I walked past the chapel, I felt I heard the Lord say, come in for a minute. So, I did and as I knelt down, I felt Him say “Do you know I love you”? And I said, I know that you love me in the sense that you want what is best for me, my sanctification as St. Peter says. Then I felt Him say, “Do you know that I love to be with you?”. And I said, No Lord, I don’t know that. And then I felt Him say “Preach that to my people”. So, this message is for you and me.

What I’m going to do is to go through the great love chapter, our 2^nd reading today, because one way to meditate on this reading is to substitute Jesus for Love – Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind, etc. So, I’m going to look at some of these in Jesus.

First of all, all commentaries will point out that in the Greek, all these characteristics of love are verbs. E.g., Love “patients”, love “kinds”. We can’t do that in English, but the point is that love is an action. I had the good fortune of assisting at an RCIA class with an outstanding catechist and I remember very well when he gave the lesson on love. He said, love is a verb, it’s what you do (pointing emphatically). That’s important for us to know because we tend to think of love as a feeling. Feelings are good, but the essence of love is action – it’s what we do.

Love is patient. The term patience here means long suffering, a willingness to suffer and it includes the disposition not to return injury for injury. We see this most especially in Jesus’s passion. Throughout the whole event we see His willingness to suffer with no anger, no thought of returning injury. For example, when His closest friends are falling asleep in the garden while He is in anguish, He doesn’t get upset with them. When Judas approaches Him in the garden to betray Him, Jesus says to him “Friend, do what you have come for.” When the chief priests are questioning Him, He answers them, when they are accusing Him, He remains quiet, but He never gets angry. He’s willing to suffer their anger, their hatred.

Love is kind. Paul uses a term here that is more than simple courtesy, and I’m taking this right from the commentary – It suggests warm and benevolent welcome, magnanimous hospitality and generosity with time and service, an eagerness to make one’s brother and sister in the Lord experience their preciousness. Think of the times when Jesus met someone. To Andrew and the other disciple with him, “Come and see”. To Nathanael, “this is a true Israelite”. To Peter and the others with him, He worked the miracle of the great catch and then “Come, I will make you fishers of men”. To the woman caught in adultery and shamed in front of a crowd, the first thing He did was restore her dignity. To Zacchaeus the tax collector, “come down, I mean to stay with you this evening”. Think of His healings. He healed everyone who came to Him, good and bad, He healed everyone. On and on. He is welcoming, generous.

It (love) does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. I think this one explains today’s gospel. At first glance, Jesus doesn’t appear to be very loving in this gospel. He certainly isn’t nice. It starts off great with them singing His praises, but then a little doubt comes in. Aren’t you the son of Joseph? In other words, you’re just one of the guys and you’re claiming to be the anointed one. And Jesus responds in a way that we see very often. Whenever someone is challenging Him from a dishonest spirit, in bad faith, He goes right to the heart of their bad spirit. At the time of Elijah and Elisha, the Northern kingdom was rejecting God and so their miracles were for foreigners. He’s basically telling them the same would happen to them and of course they’re furious. It’s amazing how often Jesus does this. When people are challenging Him in bad faith, He’s not concerned with being nice to avoid tension and conflict and often He doesn’t even directly answer their question, He goes straight to the heart of their bad spirit that is underlying their question. He does this out of love, out of concern for their good.

It (love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Bears all things here means to cover over or pass over. The Jerusalem Bible: it is always ready to excuse. Believing and hoping all things here means trusting and hoping in a person’s goodness without end, without giving up. For example, from John’s gospel we know a little about the seating arrangement at the Last Supper, John was to Jesus’s right, and Peter was next to him. To His left was Judas. He was in the seat of honor. That was the culture of the time. So, even at this late hour, Jesus knows what Judas is planning, but He puts him in the place of honor to reach out to him and try to bring him back.

Three times Peter denied Jesus. How does Jesus respond? First of all, notice what He doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, ‘told you so’. Not only does He not say that, you get the impression it’s not there at all – not in His tone, not in His body language. He’s just not concerned with His own suffering; His concern is Peter and his goodness so He gives him the chance to make up for his denial if you will by asking him 3 times do you love me.

So, this is Jesus, or at least a glimpse. This is pure love. We see how welcoming He is. We see how generous He is to all who come to Him. We see His extraordinary willingness to suffer, how He believes and hopes in the good in people to the end. And yet, we can see that and still say – yeah, but that love is not for me. It’s crazy; but it can happen. Here are my thoughts when it does.

He suffered and died for every single person. He redeemed the whole world. This is an undeniable truth of our faith. That means, He suffered and died for you. Many saints have said the best way to know Jesus’s love is to meditate on His passion and His willingness to suffer for us and I’m going to make a suggestion that I read about in the context of meditating on the mysteries of the rosary, and that is, pick one element, one part of His passion that really speaks to you and focus on that. One part for me is His rejection. We have a brief gospel from Peter in Acts 10 where he says that Jesus went about doing good. He went about doing good, and His own people reject Him and turn Him over to their enemy, the Romans to crucify Him. How does Jesus respond? Father, forgive.

Besides the passion there’s one more part for meditation and this has really been with me this week. The first thing Jesus said at the Last Supper was – I have eagerly desired to share this meal with you. Eagerly desired. Jesus’s whole point in giving us the eucharist through the gift of His priests is His longing to be with us.

When Joni and I were first getting to know each other, she shared with me that she thinks there are 2 ways of love – you can do things for, or you can do things with. She said she’s always wanted to do with. And I’ve seen this is true. She will do for, like cooking dinners and such, but she is much more joyful when she is doing with.

Jesus did FOR (crucifix) and He does WITH (altar). As you come up for communion, I encourage you to hear Him say to you what He said to the first disciples – I have eagerly desired to share this meal with you. He established the eucharist. This was His doing, and He did it because He wants to be with us. Let us believe, let us accept His love for us. Let us live with Him, in His kingdom, right now, and do our best to share this blessing with as many people as we can. God bless you.