Sunday Meditation: Love One Another

The Gospel reading of the Fifth Sunday of Easter in Year C returns us to the Farewell Discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper in the Gospel of John.  This is at the beginning of the Farewell Discourse and we hear Jesus proclaim two things: God’s Glory as it will be manifest in Him and His new commandment of love.

 

When Judas had left them, Jesus said,

“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

If God is glorified in him,

God will also glorify him in himself,

and God will glorify him at once.

My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.

I give you a new commandment: love one another.

As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.

This is how all will know that you are my disciples,

if you have love for one another.”

~Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35

 

Fr, Geoffrey Plant provides an understanding of what exactly it means for God to have glory and for Jesus to come into His glory.  I like Fr. Geoffrey’s definition of glory: the manifestation of the divine in the world.

 

When Jesus uses the word “glorify” five times in two verses, one has to take notice.  From “doxa” we get the word doxology, a prayer to specifically glorify God.  The most common doxology in Catholicism is the Glory Be prayer, otherwise known as the Gloria Patria in Latin.

And of course you have heard the great doxology at Mass at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer:

Through Him, with Him, and in Him,

O God, almighty Father,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit

all glory and honor is yours,

forever and ever.

 

As per Fr. Geoffrey’s homily, the glory here is an acknowledgement and manifestation of the divine.  Now that has added to my understanding of the Mass.

The pastoral sermon—a woman cannot give a homily, and so I call it a sermon—comes from Sr. Maryam Caritas—how fitting a name is that!—from the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, otherwise known as SOLT. 

 

As the good Sister says, “If lived well this (“love one another as I have loved you”) encompasses the entirety of the Ten Commandments.”  Sister Maryam’s two questions: (1) How am I not lovig well? And (2) How can I love with the love of Christ? 

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him."

 

 

My guess is you sang this hymn at Mass today, “They Will Know We Are Christians.”   I don’t know who exactly is singing this rendition, but he does a fantastic job.

 

“They Will Know We Are Christians by our love.”  One of my favorite hymns.