6th Sunday of Easter (B) 5 May 2024 Sermon

6^th Sunday of Easter (B) 5 May 2024 Love one another

Prior to the fall it must have been easy to love God and Neighbour. Before sin it would have been easy because there was no deviation from God's will to our own will.

Then sin happened and there was a huge rupture between God and us.

The pure waters of God's truth have become polluted by sin and we have become tired and cynical in the process.

It is hard for us to believe in the fulness of blessing that God promises us – such as the glory of Heaven.

We have never seen that much goodness and glory, so it is hard for us to believe in such things.

Only partially believing the Gospel and only partly identifying with the Church people pray less, and when they do pray, without conviction.

This is not how it was meant to work, but it is entrenched in each generation.

We note that each generation seems to repeat the same mistakes of every other generation.

Yet it is clear that God wants us to rise above that.

We cannot stop others from hating and killing. We can at least get our own part of the world right.

We make prayer of reparation for ongoing sin. Every day the world offends God; every day we offer sacrifice for sins, especially the Mass.

We would love to see these things change, so we must not give up.

It cannot be as difficult as we make it. It is just that we get deflected very quickly and stop seeking the solution in the only place it is found, namely Heaven.

God makes it easy for us, giving us example and instructions. And grace which works through the sacraments.

Love comes from God; it is essentially outgoing. This is why He made us and keeps us in being – to be receivers and returners of His love.

To cure cynicism and tiredness, we look at the light first, and the darkness will not overpower us. But if we look at the dark first then we are going to be disorientated and miserable. This is what many people do, and why they even conclude there is no God.

We pray for the blindness to be lifted.

So that it is no longer a furnace of charity on one side and a pale flame on our side. Instead we develop a strong faith, hope, and love, covering every area of need. We can get better at this. Prayer, sacraments, good deeds and the like will help to purify the polluted waters of our understanding.

God can multiply our small offering, our ‘five loaves’, and feed a multitude (Mt 14,17-21). The harvest is rich but the labourers are few(Mt 9,37).

We bring what we have, including the belief that God can act. We bring the ‘five loaves’ acknowledging God's power to make it happen.

Then we make the necessary application that He asks of us.

This will bring about conversions. People will see charity in action and will realise there is a better way. They realise how good God has been to them and they are ashamed of their hardness of hearts.

We pray for each other to discover what has not yet become the normal practice, though it is very simple in its essence. Let God's love take effect in our world, transforming the people in it, and the world itself.

We can become tired and cynical but we resist that outcome. Instead we acknowledge every day as a new beginning, and a chance to get it more right than ever before.