LOVE MADE VISIBLE

Sixth Sunday of Easter by Rev. MR. R. Christoph Sandoval, Deacon https://www.youtube.com/live/6p7oHPi-hMY?feature=shared

“Jesus said to his disciples:

"Whoever loves me will keep my word,

and my Father will love him,

and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”

?

We are made for love.

We are made to love, and to be loved.

?Each one of us longs to be loved, because love is the source and the meaning of our lives. Without love, our lives feel empty, meaningless, and lonely. Most of us have found that nothing can take the place of love—nothing can satisfy us but love, given and received, by which we experience the love of God.

?We are made by Love, in the image of Love, and for the purpose of Love—because God is love, and God has created each one of us in and through love.

?Indeed, love is at the center of what it means to be a human person in the image and likeness of God. The whole Christian mystery is the story of God’s love for us—the love of Jesus Christ, who came into the world for the love of mankind to do the will of the Eternal Father, who is the Father of Love by the outpouring of Love who is the Holy Spirit.? The Holy and Blessed Trinity is in fact a Community of Love. This love goes deeper than fleeting emotions or transitory thoughts. It is the very life of God in us, for God is love and everyone who abides in love abides in God and God in them (1 John 4:16).?

?The Word of God made flesh, incorporeal (in·kor·poor·real), incorruptible and immaterial entered into our world as one among us. Christ came into the world because the immutable bonds of love between God and Man had been severed by Original sin, and only He could restore them. Out of his loving kindness he came for us one blessed night to atone for our sins. He took our humanity to give us his divinity and to heal us from our failure to love and all that separates us from him. He came to accept the death we deserve as sinners, to die so that we could have life to the fullest and life eternal without end.

?Christ gave us his body and blood, as a gift of love, so that we could know his truest identity as both gift giver and gift.? We must become what we receive in the imitation of Christ, we too must offer our body and blood to make love visible for the love of God and for the love of neighbor.? The love of Christ compels us to make love visible by visible actions in response to the Powers of Darkness, a struggle which began from the beginning of the world that seeks to eclipse Christ who is the Light of the World.

?Christian spirituality, rooted in Scripture, spoke commonly of our three spiritual enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. How do you and I respond?

?THE WORLD

We make love visible when we take up arms against the world, the flesh, and the devil by becoming Soldiers for Christ to engage in the internal battlefields within us and external battlefields around us in our time and space. This Fallen World is being torn asunder by thirteen major wars including the Ukraine vs Russia, Israel vs Hamas, and major persecutions of Christian communiities in North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, and Yemen to name a few. In the homeland we are experiencing a wave of political violence fueled by an alarming rise of antisemitism and a wave of violence ?attributed to unvetted criminals entering the country by unfettered waves of Illegal immigration to every city in the nation.?

?We must put on the armor of God so that we may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil and hold our ground for the Kingdom of Heaven in this Culture of Death. Scripture is clear we must stand fast with our loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, our feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace, holding to faith as a shield, to quench all [the] flaming arrows of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

?THE FLESH

The Sins of the flesh are a perversion of the love that is at the heart of Christianity.? Lust is an inadequate substitute for love, and a form of idolatry that leads to the sexual abuse of people as a means to our own carnal gratification.? The Pornography Pandemic is proof of an endless spiritual battle? in our nation. Pornographic images are intentionally designed to trigger unbridled human lust to distort, deprave and destroy the human spirit, mind and body. It is Satan’s counter offer to God’s design for human sexuality. He is aided and abetted by unconscionable human profiteers who collaborate with the Evil One to prey on men, women and children destroying the very fabric of love in our families.? Love becomes visible when we clothe ourselves with God’s Spiritual Armour of Prayer and the Sacraments to defend and protect our children, youth, women, men and vulnerable citizens.

?THE DEVIL

Faith teaches us that the reality of evil “is a living spiritual being, perverted and corrupting”. He has successfully convinced most Catholics that moral issues of our times are political issues.? He has co-opted so-called Catholic politicians at the? highest levels of governance to spearhead the Abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia Industrial Complex harvesting millions of dollars by the slaughter of the innocent sadly causing automatic excommunication (effective at the moment an act is committed) from the church according to Canon law regardless of whether a bishop (or the pope) has excommunicated them publicly.

?We make love visible when we when raise our voices in defense of the unborn and the most vulnerable at the end of life among the poor, the mentally ill and the disabled in danger of abortion and euthanasia for profit.

?We make love visible when we frequent Sacramental Confession to receive Divine Mercy and forgiveness through Holy Mother Church which has the keys to the kingdom of heaven with the authority to bind on earth that which shall be bound in heaven; and to loose on earth that which shall be loosed in heaven.”

We make love visible when we follow the teaching of Saint Paul, “True disciples must abandon the violence of “biting and devouring one another” (Galatians 5:15) and choose instead to “serve one another through love.”

Jesus said to his disciples and to us today:

"As the Father loves me, so I also love you.

Remain in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,

just as I have kept my Father's commandments

and remain in his love."

Saint Pope John Paul II reminds us “Jesus awaits us in the sacrament of love."Let us now prepare to receive the Eucharist which is truly love made visible in the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.