“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him the greatest human achievement. The measure of love is to love without measure.”

St. Augustine of Hippo

“Love one another as I have loved you.” John 15.12

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus speaks to his disciples about unconditional love. This is part of his farewell speech.

This is the kind of love Jesus is about to show in his arrest, torture and crucifixion.

Love is what the gospels are all about. God is love. Jesus is God’s Son. All that Jesus says and does reflects the Father’s love.

Unbelievably, Jesus calls his followers friends. Unlike servants they know all they need to know and are “commissioned to go out and to bear fruit,” and then amazingly-  

“Anything you ask in my name.” Jesus says, “the Father will you.” 

Friends speak to each other. This is what prayer is and a good start is to read and understand what Jesus said and did and reflect upon what this means for how to live.

How awesome that Jesus, Son of God has commissioned us to go out and bear fruit. To change people’s lives by bringing them more closely to Him. To transform the world.

I feel gratitude that Jesus gave his life for me so that I could have life in the fullest way possible in the here and now and be immersed in his love for all eternity.

I feel privileged that the God who made me is calling me to change the world so as to reflect his love.

• to honour human life from conception to death
• to put an end to war and nuclear weapons
• to free the world from the chains of ideology
• to share the worlds’ resources including covid vaccines at this time
• to value and esteem the gift of sexuality in the context of a covenant relationship of love

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

Listen to “Such Love/ Lord your tenderness Graham Kendrick/Nicky Rogers on Youtube

We can only be all that we can be by being united to Christ the Vine. Separated from him we can only be a poor second – a shadow of the self that God the Father has in mind for us.

In the gospel this Sunday Jesus says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” Conversely, cut off from me you can do nothing,” (John 15: 1-8).

How can anyone be united to Christ? How can we be ‘the difference?’ Through belonging. We show belonging to a particular football team by going to matches, singing the songs, wearing the tee shirt and scarf and going to the pub afterwards either to commiserate or rejoice.

In the same way we show belonging to Christ by meeting his followers in Church for song and worship and by sharing our hopes and struggles joys and sorrows. When life gets tough we turn to Jesus and grow, becoming much more than we were before. As this gospel passage tells us, we bear even more fruit in our lives.

This may not be world changing but can be life changing for us and those we love and care about and those we meet each day.  

In the words of Mother, now Saint, Theresa of Calcutta;

 “We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”

Rooted in love which comes through Christ, we can be all that God has planned for us since the beginning of time. Rootless what are we and where are we going?