LOVE ONE ANOTHER JOHN 15:9-17

Rev. Emmett H. Carroll, S.J.

May 13, 2012

“All you need is love.” The Beatles sang this song in the late 1960s, and

people argue to this day about the meaning of the lyrics. The word

“love” is repeated nine times in this song’s first line. The lyrics continue:

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.

Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.

It’s easy.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney suggest that many people can

accomplish the task which, you might imagine, that you alone can

accomplish. Perhaps you think yourself a great vocalist, and you

therefore imagine that only you can rightly carry off this fine aria.

Really, many singers are entirely capable with that song.

Ah, but you can learn to play the game; you can learn to love greatly.

The game of life is possible for anyone who loves.

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known,

Nothing you can see that isn’t shown,

Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.

It’s easy.

I recall meeting a woman from the United States who was living in a

dusty village in Guyana, South America, who belonged to a small

Protestant Church. She was compiling a dictionary of the language of

those native people residing in quite a limited area. She was trying to

know what the native folk already knew and readily spoke. Thus the

Beatles’ song, “There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.”

On the ferry traveling to Seattle, we can view the wonderful scene of

Mount Rainier gleaming in the Southern horizon. That sight can be

readily seen these clear days, for Mount Rainier is clearly shown. So the

Beatles’ had it right: “There’s nothing you can see that isn’t shown.” In

all our efforts, according to the song, in learning and in seeing, we best

achieve when we love.

Furthermore, you and I, according to this song, ought to love being just

where we are. Financially, emotionally, relationally, we should embrace

our current situation, and not curse our condition, not fight our fate.

Tomorrow may advance other avenues, but for the moment, we can love

our creaturely existence, not despair in doom. “All you need,” says the

song, “is love, love, love is all you need.” Such dreamy love brings on

an emotional high.

The religious meaning of love, of agape, differs from the Beatles’ song.

While that lyric does not name the object, the person to whom we attach

ourselves, our religious faith unites us in love with our Creator. God

chose Israel and required that nation to stick with Him; an unwavering

attachment must glue Israel to God.

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore,

you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all

your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words

which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak

of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind

them at your wrist as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your

forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your

gates (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

We learn of God’s boundless love. “For God so loved the world that he

gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not

perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). While the Beatles’ song

desires a loving nature, open simply to love everyone and everything—a

loving nature that has not yet met contrariness or meanness—we

religiously realize God loving us in our sin and willfulness.

Jesus praises love as a gift of God, a way of life. Yet Jesus uses the word

“love” to mean a discipline. “You are my friends if you do what I

command you” (John 15:14). Furthermore, “This is my commandment,

that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). By living

the commandments, we direct our love to God and to neighbor.

If the Beatles’ love is too dreamy for a cold-eyed person of experience,

still, we grow and develop in loving. A few days ago we celebrated at

Mass the sanctity of Damien, the leper of Molokai, a person who offers

us an example of a lover. Born in Belgium in the mid-nineteenth

century, Damien eventually volunteered to bring Christ to the leper

colony in Hawaii; his love of neighbor centered on his loving the leper

outcasts on Molokai. He arranged a government grant that brought new

houses and a new church, a school and an orphanage; and Damien

succeeded in getting the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, New York, to

help staff this colony. These nuns were lovers. Incidentally, they

regularly washed their hands. Damien failed that simple expedient.

God loves you and me unconditionally. God continually creates us, and

so God continually exercises His choosing us. Thus Aquinas speaks of

our “friendship with God” (Summa Theologiae: 2.2.23.1). “By God, you

were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (I Cor.

1:9). Love is considered the greatest of the theological virtues. Finally,

God is identified with love. “Love is from God; everyone who loves is

born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know

God, for God is love” (I John 4:7-8).

Today we celebrate Mother’s Day. We expect mothers to love their

children with a love not conditioned by physical or mental ability. A

mother’s love is surpassing, and Isaiah asks if such a possibility exists.

“Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of

her womb? (49:15).

On this Mother’s Day, we are mindful of God choosing even us to

cherish and to love. Amen.