Chain of Love 5/21/06
by Fr.Gus Carter

There is a simple story that says a lot about our life with God. A king was riding in his carriage during a heavy rainstorm. He saw a man walking by the side of the road. He offered the man a ride in his carriage. The man was somewhat skeptical of the king's offer. He said "What must I do to get this ride." The king replied, "You only have to accept it."

Accepting love, however, tells only half of the story. Once God's love is accepted, a chain effect takes place. As Jesus received the love of the Father, he loved his disciples with the same love. Jesus abides in the love of the Father because he keeps the Father's commandment to pass on the love he has received. The disciples abide in Jesus love if they keep his commandment which is the same as the Father's: love as you have been loved.

Jesus promised that if we love as he loved, we will live with joy. When we live according to our essential nature, being loving, we will share in Jesus joy. He poured out the love he received from the Father onto his disciples. Therefore, they share not only the love but the joy of the love giver. The communicated joy of Jesus is only the initial taste. The law of complete love means that we only understand what we have received when we, in turn, give it away. Hence, the disciples will enter into the fullness of joy when they love one another as Jesus loved them.

Jesus is telling us in today's Gospel that we must understand ourselves as links in the love chain from the Father to Jesus, from Jesus to us, from us to one another. We are to move from anxious, separate living into holy communion. There is no need to grab or hold or possess this life as if it were a scarce commodity. It is abundant beyond measure. God does not measure out the Spirit of love He offers. We are made to live in a love chain. When we grasp this fully, we will know what the Father is ultimately about. When we try to live this love chain, we are not overreaching, puffed up with pride. We have been chosen by Jesus and the Father to enact the love chain. The Father does not ask us to do things for which we are not prepared. If we ask the Father for what we need to make love happen in the way Jesus made love happen, the Father gives an abundant response. It is the Father who started this life adventure of our loving one another. This is why the Father surely answers our prayers to be true lovers.
How do we experience ourselves as chosen for love? We must enter our memories to bring back to mind forgotten moments of love. We must find those moments in our lives that tell us that we have been loved. This love is the foundation for who we are. We must recall our own efforts to love. Even if failures appear more often than successes, we must note that we have tried. Still today much of what we do is our attempt to love and to give life to others. Unfortunately many humans have a better memory for the bad things that have happened in their lives. We must not let these things drown out our memory of love.

We have to remember that the only way people can experience life as enabling and inspiring grace is to give them the experience of themselves as grace and treasure. Unless some human loves me, I will not feel my own life as a grace or gift of God. This is how important giving love is. Only when we feel cherished and valued by others can we cherish and value others.

To open ourselves to the chain of love, we must choose one person who has loved us, treated us as a treasure. Then see that person as a revelation of the universal love of God. We must keep telling ourselves of the love in our lives. We want to grasp the centrality of love in our existence and move away from the experiences that have crippled our capacity to love. We help ourselves to be lovers by paying attention to those who have a highly-developed ability to love. Recall these persons and reflect on their presence and words. Some people sense love at the center of their lives in direct ways. They know the "Father in heaven" even when their "father on earth" was missing or ineffective. Some people have told me that they had impoverished childhoods. They were given beautiful and deeply personal experiences of God's love for them. We must pray to receive the love given us in our lifetime so that we may more effectively be part of God's love chain.