The Joy of Being Loved (6th Sunday Easter B)

We all tend to accept too readily the fact that, between the acts of loving and of being loved, the former is a lot harder.  We uncritically believe that being loved is a lot easier as it entails, so it seems, just being in the receiving end of the relationship.  However, the contrary may be true.  Fr. Joseph Galdon, SJ, in one of his reflections in the Mustard Seed, made this point too.  The position of being loved is more difficult because, contrary to the position of the lover, one is not in control of the decision to love.  While the lover may be certain about his love and knows well the depth, the height, the breadth of his love as all these spring from his own will,  the beloved—the one being loved—has to grapple with uncertainties regarding the authenticity of the love, the purity of the intentions, the duration of the commitment, etc.  While the former is in the position of control, so to speak, the latter is in the position that requires trust and hope.

This allows us to see that in our loving relationship with God, we may have been very concerned about our inadequacies in loving Him, when in fact our more fundamental difficulty is allowing ourselves to be loved by Him. All too often, our unhappiness springs from our realization that we have not loved God enough.  But the real problem is actually we find it hard to trust enough to allow God to love us the way He wants—and that is unconditionally. And when we fail to really experience the joy of being loved by God, where else do we find the strength, the inspiration, the desire to love God enough? Nowhere.  So we persist in our unhappiness.

Today’s first reading, from the first book of John 4: 7-10, reminds us of the real nature of loving: “In this is love: Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (v. 10).  God loved us first, even when we were sinners, even when we did not have the capacity to love him.

It is important then to ask ourselves, do we trust God’s initiative of love? Are we convinced that even if we are every inch undeserving of God’s love, He does love us anyway?

Hence, we see quite clearly that prior to the problem of our disappointing inadequacies in loving God is our inadequacies in allowing Him to love us in his terms.  We ought to remember that we love God only as a response to his initiative.  It is of paramount importance then that we be in touch with the way God loves us and experience the joy of being loved by Him.

The gospel reading today (Jn 15: 9-17), reveals three ways with which God loves us.  Let us reflect on these:

The way of sacrifice. God, through his Son, has given up everything for our sakes.  The greatest test of loving is total self-giving. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (v. 13).  Knowing how much God has sacrifice for our sake certainly can help us trust in such a love.  How come we have persisted in our doubts about the greatness of God’s love for us?

The way of friendship.  God has freed us from slavery of sin. We are no longer slaves.  God invites us to friendship with Him. “I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father” (v. 15).  What a great privilege to become privy to the “secrets” of God. God is offering us intimacy, the opportunity to know him and to remain in him as friends!

The way of preferential love.  God has chosen us to be his own.  It is not even us who chose him. In the words of the gospel today: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you” (v. 16).  God has chosen us to bear fruits and has promise us his providence. 

God loves us this much. And we have to allow ourselves to be loved by God this way.  We need to experience in life the full extent of God’s love for us... for only then we gain the power to respond to God with great love too.

“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete” (v. 11). In saying this, the Lord may have known that the surest way to disappointment and despair is for us to focus our awareness on the feebleness of our love for God.  But the surest way to great joy is relishing the experience of being loved by God and trusting that despite our unworthiness God loves us just the same. It is God’s love that makes us worthy of Him.

This is the joy of being loved!