Cycle B – 6th Sunday of Easter
In today’s gospel, the evangelist John uses the word love nine times. We translate it as love, but in the Greek the word is agape (ah-gah-pay). This is a kind of love different from love of a friend or romantic love. Agape love is self-sacrificing love; a kind of love that leads us to give of ourself for another person. Agape love is the love God shows for us and it is a love we experience because of the action of God on us.
We know that God loves us unconditionally. God loves us when we are kind and caring, and God loves us when we are mean and sinful. God always loves us. God loves us so much that he sent his Son to die for us. That’s self-sacrificing love. That’s agape love.
In the gospel we hear that the Father loves Jesus, the Son, and that as the Father loves Jesus, Jesus loves us. Jesus then challenges us that as the Father loves Jesus and Jesus loves us, we are to love one another as we are loved. Jesus commands us to love one another
The kind of love that Jesus is challenging us to practice involves recognizing the needs of another person and acting on that in place of actions that are just about us. That’s self-sacrificing; doing for another instead of just thinking of ourselves.
In addition to the sixth Sunday of Easter and Mother’s Day, today is also the day for the collection to support the Catholic Charities of Chicago. This once a year appeal provides support for the programs to help those in need in Lake and Cook Counties. Catholic Charities has been helping people since 1917 and is one of the largest private, not-for-profit social service agencies in the Midwest. More than one million people receive help every year. Catholic Charities helps people without regard to religious, ethnic or economic background. There are 153 programs in Catholic Charities that operate out of 161 locations throughout Lake and Cook counties.
Catholic Charities has over 3000 well-trained staff and those staff are helped by over 15,000 volunteers. That helps provide efficient services to the people in need in every community in our diocese.
Last year, more than a quarter of a million people received food, clothing, shelter, rent and utility assistance from Catholic Charities. Nearly 70,000 people were served warm meals in the evening supper programs. Over 1,000 children have received preventative health screenings and back to school medical exams. More than 6,700 vulnerable people avoided homelessness by calling the foreclosure and homeless helplines run by Catholic Charities.
Nice facts about Catholic Charities, but why would we decide to follow through with the call to self-sacrificing love by helping this organization.
Well it’s certainly not just about the numbers, it’s about people.
There’s Eva who is doing all she can to raise her six grandchildren alone on a limited income. When she couldn’t afford to fix the plumbing in her house, she called Catholic Charities. They made the home repair, and invited her to a caregiver’s support group. She is one of over 398,000 seniors helped last year.
Christina, a single mother, left the army after several deployments, and needed a way to support her family. Within a month, Catholic Charities helped her land a job as a customer service supervisor. Last year, she and over 9,000 other veterans were served through housing, counseling and job placement.
A major direction of Catholic Charities is to guide people to become self-sufficient. Through case management, counseling, support groups, and housing assistance, many people are able to develop job skills and get employment that helps them to come off government assistance and care for their families by themselves.
There’s the Meals on Wheels program which provides a hot meal daily for thousands of seniors and that helps them stay in their own homes and live independent lives.
These people are our neighbors; people living in our community and maybe even down the street. There are people in need of these services all around us and Catholic Charities is there to help them.
Your donation to Catholic Charities is one of several sources of funding. They leverage your generosity through donations and grants from foundations, funds from corporations and from bequests. Catholic Charities works hard to be efficient with 92 cents of every dollar going directly to the programs that help people.
In addition to funds, Catholic Charities is always in need of volunteers willing to show love of neighbor. Just go to Catholic Charities dot net and choose Volunteer. Their page will connect you with opportunities in your neighborhood to help others.
Thank you for considering Catholic Charities as a way to show our agape love. There will be a second collection for Catholic Charities today.
God the Father loves Jesus, his Son and sends his Son to us. Jesus loves us and tells us that we must love our neighbor. Let’s look for opportunities this week to share this love of neighbor and think of others before we think of ourselves. That’s Christian love.
Today we also celebrate Mother’s Day. It certainly requires a self-sacrificing love to be a good mother. We honor our mothers for bringing us into this life. And we pray for their happiness and for eternal life for all of them. Thanks, moms, for all you have done for us.