Word to the Wise
Tuesday, January 7, 2025 - Jan. 7 - St. Raymond of Peñafort, priest
[1 John 4: 7-10 and Mark 6:34-44]Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. [1 John]
JANUARY 7 CHRISTMAS WEEKDAY [St. Raymond Penyafort, O.P.]
Years ago, I heard someone quote a famous psychologist (Carl Rogers?) as saying, "You know you love someone when their welfare is more important to you than your own." St. Paul was ahead of him when he wrote his often-read-at-weddings words about love in chapter 13 of 1st Corinthians and elsewhere in his letters. In the Johannine letters, Jesus' commandment of love is central to faith in him. The words GOD IS LOVE are often printed on signs and embroidered in wall hangings. But love is not something in print or sewing. It has to be incarnate in order to be real, and not simply an abstract subject of song, poetry and sermons.
In the motion picture adaptation of Charles Dickens' OLIVER TWIST ["OLIVER'], little Oliver, who has run away from the cruel orphanage master, hides in a cellar in total misery and sings "Where is love?" That is a very relevant question in our own time. We don't have to look very far to find love's absence. Our own national politics is ample testimony. But love, like politics, is essentially local. It is in the challenge of everyday life with other human persons. It should be the motivation of any good cause like care for the poor and the migrant or the environment. When I celebrate the sacrament of Baptism, my constant charge to the parents and loved-ones of the child is to teach the child how to give and receive love.
Our Christian symbol is the cross. But the cross by itself remains a symbol until the body of Jesus is shown on it. There is love incarnate. There we see the meaning of the line from today's first scripture: God is love. But the message only becomes complete when it is expressed in our own behavior whether individual or national or international! It begins with each of us. AMEN