Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter

There’s an old story about a political dignitary who attended the coronation of King Edward VII in England. He witnessed the historic moment when the crown was placed on the king’s head. He danced at the coronation ball, and he mingled with royalty and celebrities.

When he returned home, someone asked him if there was a moment that stood out above all others. He said, “Yes.” It took place one night as he was returning to his hotel. It was bitter cold and, as he passed a vacant building, he saw two street children huddled together in the doorway. One was a boy of about twelve; the other was a girl about four, presumably his sister.

The boy had taken off his coat and put it around his little sister’s shoulders. And he had taken off his wool cap and put it around her feet. The dignitary said that the image completely eclipsed the pomp and ceremony of the coronation; it was an image he would remember for the rest of his life.

That story dramatizes the kind of love Jesus describes in today’s Gospel when he says, “Love one another as I love you.” And when he says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

It’s been said that love boils down to a question of giving: self-giving,  forgiving, and thanksgiving.

We’ve seen how love is a question of self-giving in the story of the little boy huddled with his young sister as he tried to keep her warm while he must have been freezing.

Forgiveness, too, must be a part of every loving relationship, precisely because we are human. Being human, we sin against one another and hurt one another — even those we love most. For that reason, we must be ready to forgive one another, and we must be prepared to do this not just once, but, as Jesus says, “seventy times seven times.”

How often we say the LORD’s Prayer, with the words, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” I used to have a friend in college who would annoy people around him at Mass because when he said the LORD’s Prayer, he changed the words and would say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we SHOULD forgive those who trespass against us.” 

That was really avoidance. Jesus didn’t say that God the Father would do what we should do but don’t do; he told us to do as he does. He told us that he would deal with us with the same measure that we deal with others. The words in the LORD’s Prayer are not some feeble attempt at showing us how we might forgive. Instead, they give a clear mandate that we are to forgive one another, regardless of how hard or painful that might be, so that we may be released from the tombs that grudges and anger place us in.

The third kind of giving that love involves is thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is essential when it comes to our love for God. We don’t have much else to give God except thanks for all that God has given to us.

At the end of World War I, the late actress Helen Hayes was 18 years old, starring on Broadway.

During a rehearsal one day, someone came running into the theater, shouting news that the war was over. Immediately, the entire place went wild. The cast forgot about the rehearsal and took off to celebrate. But Helen didn’t join them. Instead, she left the theater and headed for St. Patrick’s Cathedral, making her way through the crowds of celebrating people.

She said she “had visions of being the only person in that vast chapel offering up a prayer of thanks to the LORD. But, when [she] got there, the Cathedral was so packed, [she] couldn’t get inside. [She] was forced to offer [her] prayer on the steps.” 

And so, today, we are called upon to search out those areas in our lives where we can be more self-giving, more forgiving, and where we need to offer a prayer of thanksgiving. We’re called to recognize these areas and then to do something about them. Indeed, as St. Francis of Assisi prayed, “it is in giving that we receive, and it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.” In our thanks, we recognize our dependence on God and on all those we love. In doing these things, we touch the mystery of God’s love and share in that mystery as we become channels of God’s peace.+