Jesus said to his disciples, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him."
Homily
Loving Christ Means Obeying Him
Throughout the year the Church reveals to us in her sacred liturgy the powerful love God has for us. We especially see this love during the Easter season. Now the time has come for us to give Jesus an answer to his statement, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
On the night of Holy Thursday, the Upper Room turned into a stage for the most historical farewell of all time. Jesus knew that it was the final encounter he would have with his friends until after his resurrection, and so he left us a gift, a commandment and a promise. The gift was the Holy Eucharist; the commandment, to love one another; the promise, the sending of the Holy Spirit.
Love and Obedience
Why does Jesus set up a relationship between love and obedience? Aren’t these two concepts contradictory? Love has the ring of liberty, while obedience feels like submission. But in God’s logic, it’s love that gives meaning to fulfilling the law. Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel, “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.”
By pairing love and obedience, Jesus reveals the novelty of his message. We accept this heritage of love each time we forget about ourselves as we work to see the face of Jesus in the suffering, the poor, the humble and the abandoned. In other words, love becomes a reality for us when it crystallizes into works of charity.
St. Martin of Tours
We see love in action in St Martin of Tours, a Roman soldier who became a Christian in the 4th Century. The son of a Roman officer, he joined the army at the age of 15, and, while stationed in France, he heard the Christian message for the first time. At the age of 20, as he returned to the city one cold, wintery day after patrolling the surrounding countryside, he saw a starving, half-naked man shivering and begging at the city gates. Everyone was ignoring the poor man. But Martin, not yet baptized, felt that Christ wanted him to do something. So he took his cloak, cut it in half and wrapped one half around the beggar. Everyone laughed at Martin, the soldier with half a cloak! But that night in a dream, he saw Jesus wrapped in that same half cloak. Then he heard the Lord say, “Martin, not yet baptized, has covered me with this garment.” Martin learned what being a Christian really means: To obey Christ means to love others through self-sacrifice.
Words are Dwarves; Actions are Giants
The world today is tired of empty promises. There is a Swiss proverb that goes like this: "Words are dwarves; actions are giants." Without actions, love remains just empty talk. Today at this Mass, God will show us once again that he is a God of love and action when he becomes really present for us on the altar under the appearance of Bread and Wine. May his amazing "love put into action" inspire us to imitate him. And through the intercession of our Blessed Mother and St Martin of Tours, may we always obey the Lord's commandment to love one another through self-sacrifincing service to the world. Amen.