Homily For Thursday Fifth Week of Eastertide Year A, 11th May, 2023

Readings: Acts 15:7-21; Ps.96;  John 15:9-11

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike  Onyia.

 

 REMAIN IN THE LOVE OF GOD BY KEEPING HIS COMMANDMENTS

 

The word “love” means a lot of things to different people. For some, love is one of the common words we use to express our deep feeling of affection for someone or something. But the fact remains that love is much more than that, why? Because it is something greater than the nature of the human person.

 

For me, Love is the nature of God which he shares with His creatures. It is that nature of God which we share with one another. Love is beyond human nature. When we love, we are actually acting out that very nature of God in us and this can be overwhelming and mysterious because it is the nature of God that we share.

 

Therefore, love is God's greatest gift to humanity. A gift that shows how much He loves us by sending His Son whose life giving sacrifice means salvation for the world. So, the love that Jesus has for us is nothing less than the Divine love that unites the Persons of the Trinity, and Jesus presented this love as life that must continue among his disciples. That is why in our Gospel passage today he said to his disciples: ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

 

Dear friends, let us keep the Lord’s commandments, let us embrace Jesus and the love he is offering us. Let us serve the Lord and his Church faithfully by spreading his love everywhere we find ourselves. The truth is that, it actually feels right and awesome to experience and share the love of God. I don’t know if you have ever loved someone and you show it, or someone loves you and shows it?Or somebody loves you and you know it, it is something great and awesome, because love bring life, healing and wholeness into people’s lives.

 

Thus, it is by loving God in our neighbours that we can share and experience this nature of God in us and by so doing, we will conquer the world full of hatred, self-centeredness, greed and sin, just the same way the disciples were able to resolve the issues of circumcision in our first reading today. For they said instead of making things more difficult for pagans who turn to God, we will tell them merely to abstain from anything polluted by idols, from fornication, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.

 

LET US PRAY: Lord God, as we listened to your words today, may we resolve to keep your commandments and remain in your love. Help us to spread your love to the world and by so doing conquer the hatred, self-centeredness, greed and the sin rooted in our families, societies and the world at large. Amen  Do have a favorable day.