HOMILY FROM CANON STEPHEN BAILLIE
6th Sunday of Easter
All you need is Love
Today’s Gospel offers one of the most eloquent passages on love in the Gospels. It reveals the vision of Jesus for his followers and explains how we should treat one another. We are to love each other with the same love Jesus showed during his time on earth, that great and generous love that culminated in his ‘laying down his life for his friends’. It is in the way we love one another, the way we understand and forgive and support one another, that we experience the life and love of Jesus.
There are more than 20 references to love in today’s readings. In the second reading we hear that ‘everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God’. That love that God showed by sending his Son for us, is the same generous, wholehearted, self-sacrificing love we are called to show others – all others. God does not have favourites.
Also, in the Gospel we hear ‘I have chosen you’ are the words where we recognise that we are all called by God, not to become a selective, exclusive group or a gathering which is focussed solely on its own survival. We are called, chosen, invited and named by our Creator-God to be a sign and presence of loving compassion to all people in the world.
Let us pray for our Deacon Joe that he will continue his journey to his Priestly Ordination, knowing that he has been chosen by God and his response is to be a sign and presence of God’s compassion to our community, as well as praying for our Children who received their First Holy Communion – that they too through their committed faith will be a sign and presence to our families and parish of St Joseph’s/St Bridget’s communities.
May God bless you all on this 6th week of Easter.
