Click Here for Today's Mass Readings (Thursday After Epiphany):
As I mentioned in yesterday’s reflection on Epiphany, this feast is a celebration of the gift of salvation that God wanted to share with the entire world. Instead of the Gospel stating that “salvation is only for the Jews,” it states, “salvation is from the Jews.” In other words, in Epiphany the gift of salvation breaks through the borders of physical descent and is offered to everyone. God has extended His love to us, the “Gentiles,” the non-Jews.
In the days following Epiphany, the Mass readings are chosen to draw our attention to the different moments in the Gospel where Christ is “manifested” to the world in some way. It is a prolonged reflection on the feast of Epiphany. I want to look at two sentences from today’s first reading where St. John the Evangelist speaks about the foundation on which the two greatest commandments of God rest and connect them to Epiphany.
The first reading opens with the profoundly simple statement: “Beloved, we love God because he first loved us.” Amazing. The fact that we desire to love God, to serve Him, and desire to draw closer to Him is a sign that we have been loved by God first. The longing in our heart for God is a “manifestation” that we are loved by Him. The love that we have received from God is the source of the love which Jesus demands from His disciples in the Gospel: “Love one another as I have loved you.” The key part of this sentence is “as I have loved you.” In order to love God and our neighbor properly, we must first open ourselves to God’s love and choose to listen to His voice over and beyond any voice within that pushes us to self-hatred. For some people this is very difficult. But there must eventually be a point where one chooses to listen to the voice of God and stop believing any voice unworthy of a son or daughter of God. I often sense that when people are too harsh, rigid, or impatient with others, it is an indication of a certain harshness and impatience towards themselves. The old cliché, “you can only give what you have” can also be applied to the love of God and neighbor. We are not the source of the love which must be given to God and neighbor. We must love God and others with the love of God.
This leads into the second sentence I wanted to look at from today’s first reading, which regards the second greatest commandment: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” What St. John means is that the love of God and the love of neighbor are inseparably united. We cannot think we love God and at the same time trample down our neighbor. Each time we open ourselves to God’s love, or experience it firsthand without looking for it, we are transformed in some way and made more like God. The love of neighbor is a consequence of that love we have received. The love we have received overflows to our neighbor, and we begin to reflect God’s love more clearly. This is why it’s impossible for someone to say they have experienced God’s love and abide in His love, and continue to hate or be cruel and indifferent to others.
From all of this we see how the Epiphany of Christ can also be lived out in daily life. Through our acceptance of God's love, made "manifest" in our love for our neighbor, we become a reflection of the essential mystery of Epiphany - that the love of God has the power to break through the borders of our “ego” and become a visible sign of salvation to the world. God bless you.
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Tomorrow there will be no post since I will be spending all day on a plane.
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