Our Lord came to us in the flesh in order to save us and reconcile us to the Father. It was for this purpose that He was born man, and He knew what was to happen in order to fulfill prophecy and to achieve this reconciliation and salvation. He carried this with Him all the while that He ministered to us here on earth. Yet despite knowing what we would do to him, He cared for us, taught us, loved us, and ultimately saved us. What He asked in return, was for us to love Him, love one another, and to obey his teachings.
In our second reading today, Saint John tells us very plainly, that anyone who claims to love, and be a follower of our Lord, but does not follow His teachings, is a liar, plain and simple. No one can profess to love our Lord and be His follower, and at the same time ignore His words and teachings. That means all of them, not just those which are deemed to be appropriate or convenient. This does not mean that we will not make mistakes, we will, and for that we must be truly sorry for them and be healed through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is when we ignore His teaching, because in our arrogance we have decided that we don’t think it really applies to our worldly situations, that we stop being His true followers. It is one thing to stumble and stray from His teaching and then repent, it is another to actually reject His teaching because our pride in our own sophistication and intellect compels us to judge which of His teachings are to be followed and which we think we can dismiss. Jesus made his meaning plain to us in how he wanted us to show our love for Him. We were to love Him, and as part of the way we show that, in turn love one another. This means, we cannot truly say we love God, without caring for and showing genuine concern for all of His creations – not just those that we find easy to love like family and friends. The fact is we are all family, we share this bond through our humanity, and while there are many we may not have met yet, there are really no actual strangers. We don’t (and likely won’t) like everyone we meet, but we do need to care for them regardless. This means caring for their needs, not just thinking nice thoughts. This means true concern for their bodies and souls. From those who have been conceived, and are yet to be born, to those who are the most aged and sometimes considered burdensome to society, we must care for all.
Those who claim to be followers of Christ, and who continually through their actions show anything less than this concern for all His children, are in fact the liars that Saint John was talking about. We will know them by their actions and words. We will see it in their presence in our lives, or perhaps indirectly in what we hear of their actions and words through the media. Perhaps it is their public statements, or their voting record, or their written word that we encounter in so many media venues. The simple fact is we will know them by all these things, and we are then left with a choice, to follow them either actively or passively – thereby perhaps giving tacit approval to what they profess, or to correct them through our own responses or perhaps associations. We cannot follow Jesus and follow those who ignore His teachings – this is duplicity, and it is tantamount to lying. We must always be actively following our Lord – everything else is secondary. No other allegiances or alliances, personal, professional, political, or ideological take precedence. Our Lord is trustworthy – He has proven that over and over and has given of Himself completely for our sake – we must try to follow His example. This is our calling.
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The Deacons Bench 