Homily for Friday, 6 June 2014‒ Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter

This homily was given during the monthly St. Kateri School Mass, the last school Mass of the 2013-2014 school year. Children from kindergarten to Grade 6, teachers, school staff, and many parents were present. This was my first homily during my first Mass as presiding priest at my home parish, St. Kateri Tekakwitha in Irondequoit, NY.

School Mass Readings: Isaiah 12:4-6; Psalm 15:7-9; 1 John 3: 1, 4, 7-8; John 15:11-12, 14, 17

My first question is this, for someone really smart here; someone who was listening very carefully to our readings we have just heard is this: What are some things our readings say about God?

“God has been good to me”; to us. “God is wonderful… God is great,” says our first reading from Isaiah. Does anyone remember what else our readings say about God? Here`s a small hint: What is the very important word that begins with “L” that our second reading says God is? Our second reading says that “God is love.”

Love is a complicated word, because we love other things and people than God (this isn’t necessarily a bad thing) and also we are called to love God. What are some of the things we love, other than God? Who are some of the people we love? Who here loves their friends; a brother; a sister; other family members; their teachers; their students?

It is very good to love these people because God, who is love, asks us to love all these people and also to love God as God loves us. Jesus says in our Gospel reading today: “This is… my order.” Now when someone, especially Jesus, orders us to do something do you think it’s usually important that we follow the order?

Jesus doesn’t order us to do many things, but he orders us to do this one thing. What, then, is the order that Jesus gives us? Jesus orders us to “love one another.”

Jesus is God, and God is love, so what Jesus is saying to us is, “Be like God, who is love, and so love one another.”

Sometimes we know that, just like when our teachers or our parents order us to do something, we don’t always do what they order us (or even ask us more gently) to do. Jesus knows this when he orders us, “Love one another.” And so Jesus is with us to help us to grow in our ability to do as he asks us; to love one another as God loves us.

In what ways is Jesus is with us to help us to grow in love? Jesus is with us and helps us to grow in love for one another when we learn together; when we pray together; when we play together; and especially when we celebrate Mass; when we receive bread and wine that has been changed into the body and blood of Jesus himself, together.

Jesus promises to be with us in all these ways to help us to grow together in love for one another and in our understanding that God is love. And there’s more: Jesus makes us that promise to one another of love; that promise, as our school song this year says, “to be everything God wants [us] to be.”*

So let us pray together that Jesus might continue to help us to grow to be “the promise to be everything God wants us to be”; to be this promise to one another; to love one another just as God loves us, because God is love.
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*The lyrics to “I Am a Promise,” the theme song for St. Kateri School in Irondequoit, NY, can be found at https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080709142052AA2NCRm. This homily contains other references to hymns the children practiced at school and that were sung during this Mass.