Tuesday after
Epiphany
(I John 4:7-10; Mark 6:34-44)
Someone recently posed the word family as an acrostic. The word
is said to mean: Forget about me; I love
you. Families are made to teach selfless love – how to make personal sacrifices
for the benefit of others. The first
reading today shows how love is especially a characteristic of God’s family.
“God is love,” it says.
In another place John’s First Letter emphasizes that love is not just a word
or a feeling. “Let us not love in word or speech,” its
author writes, “but in deed and truth.” He
gives God Himself as the model of love: “In this
is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and
sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”
“Everyone knows this,” we might say. But we don’t always live it. We tend to think of ourselves first and then
others. Jesus, as today’s gospel shows, opposes
this outlook. “’Give them some food
yourselves,’” he tells his disciples when they want to dismiss the crowds. He calls us as well to make sacrifices for others’
good.
