Contemplating today's Gospel
Today's Gospel + homily (in 300 words)
Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship. Then he said, «If I find favor with you, o Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own».
Blessed are you in the temple of your holy glory, praiseworthy and glorious above all forever.
Blessed are you on the throne of your kingdom, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.
Blessed are you who look into the depths from your throne upon the cherubim, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.
«God so loved the world that He gave his only Son»
Mons. Joan Enric VIVES i Sicília Bishop of Urgell (Lleida, Spain)Today, it does us good to hear John's Gospel reminding us again that «God so loved the world...» (Jn 3:16) because in the festivity of the Blessed Trinity, God is worshipped, loved and served, because God is Love. In God we find an association with Love, and whatever He actively does He does it for Love. God loves. He loves us. This great truth is a truth that transforms us, that makes us better. Because it penetrates our discernment and becomes absolutely evident. And it deeply affects our actions honing them into total loving actions which, the purer, the greater and the more perfect.
St. John of the Cross has written: «Where there is no love, put love, and there you will draw out love». And this is true, because this is what God does all the time. He «did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world; instead, through him the world is to be saved» (Jn 3:17) thanks to Jesus' Christ's life and to his love, all the way to his death on the Cross. Today, we contemplate him as the only one that reveals us the authentic love.
We speak so much about love, that perhaps it has lost its freshness. Love is what God feels for us. Love and you will be happy! Because to love is to offer our life for those we love. Love is gratuitous and simple. Love is to deny oneself, awaiting everything from God. Love is to diligently serve those who need us. Love is to lose to recover up to a hundred fold your losses. Love is to live without accounting for what one is doing. Love is what makes us resemble God. Love —and only love— is eternity already amidst us!
Let us live the Eucharist, which is the sacrament of Love, as it gives us God's love made flesh. It makes us share the fire burning in Jesus' heart, forgives us and recasts us anew to let us love with the same kind of Love as Jesus bears us.
Thoughts on Today's Gospel
“You, oh eternal Trinity, are a deep Sea, into which the deeper I enter the more I find, and the more I find the more I seek.” (Saint Catherine of Siena)
“While in creation the Father gave us proof of his immense love by giving us life, in the passion and death of his Son He gave us the proof of proofs: He loves us and forgives us always.” (Francis)
“The Word became flesh so that thus we might know God's love: ‘In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him’ (1Jn 4:9). ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’ (Jn 3:16).” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nº 458)
