Sixth Sunday of Easter - Cycle B

Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
1 Jn 4:7-10
Jn 15:9-17

The readings today teach us that God’s love for us takes precedence over our love for him, and that his choice of us takes precedence over our choice for him. “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us” (First reading); “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you” (Gospel). In a society that places such a high value on “freedom of choice,” this truth is especially important. It is God’s choice of a human life that gives it value, not our choice. It is God’s decision to entrust us to the care of each other that creates the responsibilities we have toward human life, not the choice we make to be responsible for them.

If our responsibility to love and care for human life, starting with our own children (born and unborn) is rooted in God’s eternal choice and his decision to love us (and those children), then we do not have the moral right to reject that responsibility, love, and life.

Giving life, moreover, is the very revelation of God’s love. “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent hid only Son into the world so that we might have life through him” (First reading). The command given to us to love, therefore, is a command both to receive and give the kind of love God shows. “Love one another as I love you” (Gospel). We are to lay down our lives for one another, which is exactly the opposite of laying down others’ lives for ourselves (as so many do by abortion and other forms of violence).