Thursday after Epiphany, January 7, 2021

1 John 4:19-5:4

Beloved, we love God because he first loved us. 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. This is the commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God, and everyone who loves the Father loves also the one begotten by him. In this way we know that we love the children of God when: we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.

Just as God’s word is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4, 12), so is his love “living and active”.  It gives life, and gives it in abundance (cf. John 10, 10).  It also enables us to love.  God’s love is the cause of our love, whether for ourselves, our neighbors, or for him.  This occurs through the examples we see of his love, through his love expressed through others, through our experience of his love in prayer, and through the grace that his love brings into our hearts. 

“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar.”  John says that loving our brethren is part of loving God.  St. Paul teaches us that we who are baptized are members of the Body of Christ and that as such we share in the glories and sufferings of the other members.  Now, if we are all members of the same Body, how can we hate each other?  And if we did, how do we not hate the Head — Christ — of this Body as well?  How can the foot hate the nose, or the ear hate the arm?  The member that professes to love the Head but hates another member is a liar, then, and worse than that, is making of itself an “unprofitable branch” (cf. John 15, 2) that will be cut off and cast into the fire.  “Whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”  This may remind us of how the Lord will speak to the reprobate at the last judgment: “As often as you did not do this for the least of my brothers, you did not do it for me” (Matthew 25, 45).  A person who bears the name of Christ and is sealed with his imprint through baptism is the sign of Christ to the world, and particularly to a fellow believer.  To hate the sign is to hate the one whom the sign signifies.  Thus, “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”  Whoever loves the One signified must also love the signs that signify him.

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God.”  That is, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God and is then baptized becomes a child of God by adoption.  This makes us heirs of eternal life with Jesus, the Son of God.  “Everyone who loves the Father loves also the one begotten by him.”  We have the same Father, and if we struggle to love one another, we do so for his sake.  “In this way we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and obey his commandments.”  The outward sign of our love for God is the carrying out of his commandments.  His commandments do not burden us unduly — “his commandments are not burdensome” —  and he has made them for our benefit, since they allow us to express our love of him and of our neighbors through carrying them out, and it is in this love that we find our greatest joy on earth.  Many people find obeying laws unpleasant and restricting, but they should approach the law as something that liberates and provides opportunity.  Traffic laws, for instance, allow for safe and expeditious travel from location to location.  God’s law allows us to find our fulfillment in serving him and in knowing his love.  Some Catholics gripe about the obligation to go to Mass on Sundays and holy days, but we all ought to be grateful to God for granting us permission to worship him and to receive the Body and Blood of his Son.  We might consider that Mass is most cherished in those places where the Church is persecuted.

“Whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.”  The one who is a member of Christ’s Body “conquers” the world through his faith.  St. Paul teaches that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  We have faith in Jesus as the Son of God, in the love of the Father for us, and in the promise of heaven for those who believe in him and return his love.  The believer overcomes or “conquers” the world that insists on the reality only of that which has physicality, of what can be measured and weighed.  The world tells us, “I am all that exists.  Take pleasure in my goods while you can.”  The world speaks loudly and persuasively.  Very many people give in to its false promises and ridicule those who hold back.  Conquering the world requires steadfast faith and perseverance.  It cannot be accomplished easily or quickly, which is why John employs the verb “to conquer”.  The Christian must do this every day, fighting “the good fight” (cf. Timothy 4, 7).  In doing this, we also struggle with our fallen human nature, which seeks to impede our progress.  However, “the patient man is better than the valiant: and he that rules his spirit, than he that takes cities” (Proverbs 16, 32).  By the grace that God gives us, we can overcome that as well.

It is through faith, hope, and love that we overcome all the things set against us by the world, the flesh, and the devil.  How rightly Paul speaks when he says, “Now there remain faith, hope, and love, these three: but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13, 13).