Tuesday after Epiphany
(I John 4:7-10; Mark 6:34-44)
A guest at a soup kitchen once questioned the affection of a
volunteer who served him. “Miss Bea,”
the man said, “do you love me?” The wife
and mother replied, “Yes, Henry, I love you.”
“Miss Bea,” the man went on, “would you come home with me?” “It ain’t that kind of love, Henry,” the
woman objected.
There are different ways of loving which the wise person
distinguishes. But love itself is a
thrust for unity. Married couples express
love for one another in varied ways, especially by the act of physical
union. The volunteer showed her love for
the poor man by caringly serving his need to eat. Where the first reading today says, “God is
love,” it means that God desires to be one with everything that is. God’s love transcends natural love in that
its scope includes the undesirable. For
example, God loves us in our sinfulness.
Indeed, God desires us so much that He came to live among us and died so
that we might partake of His life.
God has also graced us with His love. We can desire to be with God even though we
cannot see Him. Our desire to love Him
leads us to care for all His creatures even though they have little to do with
us and, indeed, even though they mistreat us.
Choosing to love both God and others, we participate in God’s own life. This is eternal life. It begins here in our loving both
appropriately and universally and not, as some think, in death.
