Fr. Michael Williams

“God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into the world His only Son so that we could have life through Him”.

The human race lost it’s original innocence through the original sin of our first parents. Man and woman decided to turn away from God in the Garden of Eden by rejecting the ways of the God who “is love”. And since that original sin men and women have continued to turn away from the God who “is love” because they have been tempted by the lies of the Evil One; that is the fallen spirit that seeks to draw us away from our Creator and His ways. Since humanity’s fall from grace, its turning away from God, we can see the damage that has been done. The sinful condition that humanity has often plunged itself into is not in any way pleasing to God. Sin is hideous in the sight of God.

Yet despite humanity’s love affair with sin, God continued to love humanity. God did not turn His back on humanity, even though men and women turned their backs on God. God showed that He is love by persevering with humanity, despite the human race’s infidelities. God’s love is not fickle, it is constant.

This constancy of God’s love “was revealed when God sent into the world His only Son so that we could have life through Him”; God’s love was revealed when He sent to us what was dearest to Him, even though we didn’t deserve it. Jesus came to re-establish our friendship with God, which had been lost through sin. Jesus re-established the friendship with God by “laying down His life for His friends”. “God’s love for us [was revealed] when He sent His Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away”.

Once a person comes to the realisation that God truly loves them, then it is the source of their greatest joy. Not even death can extinguish that joy, a joy which goes beyond the grave and into eternity.

But the love God has for us commands a response from us. Jesus says to His disciples: “This is my commandment: love one another”. And it is because God has loved us, that we too should love one another. By loving our fellow human beings we make manifest our love for God and those He has created. St John says, “Anyone who says ‘I love God’ and hates His brother or sister, is a liar, since whoever does not love the brother or sister whom He can see cannot love God whom he has not seen”. So loving and caring for our fellow humans is a manifestation that we love God, failing to love our fellow humans shows the opposite. And God wants us to imitate Him in His loving. Remember God loves those who do not appreciate or deserve His love, yet He continues to love, He is not fickle. As creatures made in His image and likeness we too need to love that way.

By following Jesus’ commandment “to love one another” we will draw others to the knowledge of God’s love. St Peter drew Cornelius and his household into the embrace of God’s love by loving that household. We too will draw others into God’s loving embrace by “loving one another, since love comes from God”.

In this month of May we think of Mary, a woman of love, and we ask her to help us to become images of her loving Son, in this often loveless world:

‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,

You have given the world its true light,

Jesus, your Son - the Son of God.

You abandoned yourself completely

To God’s call

And thus became a wellspring

Of the goodness that flows forth from Him.

Show us Jesus. Lead us to Him,

So that we too can become

Capable of true love

And be fountains of living water

In the midst of a thirsting world’.