Friday of the
Fifth Week of Easter
(Acts 15:22-31; John 15:12-17)
Sr. Marie Chin was a Sister of Mercy from Jamaica. She became famous as a speaker on the
spirituality of mercy. She told the
story of how she discovered mercy with the help of a leper. When she was in secondary school she
accompanied a woman religious to a leper colony. Knocking on the door of one of the huts, they
heard a voice from inside say, “Come in.” Entering, she saw a something that
repulsed here. The leper, named Miss Lillian,
had a completely deformed face. She
stretched out her arm, which was little more than a stump without fingers, to the
youth. “Go on,” Miss Lillian said, “put
your hand in mine.” Marie responded, “I
can’t; I’m afraid.” But the leper woman said,
“Yes, you can.” Marie did not know where
the grace came to touch that rotten hand.
But all of sudden she found herself shaking hands with the leper. The
story helps explain why Jesus has to command us to love one another.
As anyone over twenty should realize, love is often not
easy. For this reason Russian writer
Fyodor Dostoyevsky called love in action “a harsh and dreadful thing.” Love, after all, requires commitment and
often suffering as well. Most of us
would never love everybody, and some of us might never love anybody without
Jesus’ command. Also necessary to
accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of loving as he loved is his help.
We ought not to worry if we do not feel affection for
others. That is not of the essence of
love. We should, however, treat everyone
with respect. Those for whom we feel a
particular repulsion we can, at least, pray for. We pray that they receive God’s grace to
become better people and that will come to know his eternal love.
