“God so loved the
world that He gave His Only Son.”
(Jn 3:16)
(Jn 3:16)
Dear Sisters
and Brothers in Christ,
We have good
reasons to look for evidences for what we believe. This does not mean that we are skeptical but
that we rather need supporting proof for the truth which we love.
Now we are
speaking of God’s love for us as the greatest truth ever revealed to human
beings.
Out of His
love, God created the world and blessed the works of His mighty hands. The Psalmist could not but sing loudly the
hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord God of heaven and earth when he
gazes on the beautiful blue sky with the sun, the moon, and countless stars,
and observes the harmonious arrangement of high mountains, immeasurable
forests, immense oceans, filled with creatures of all kinds, forms, and colors.
The creation
of man after His own image however, shows us the proof of God’s love beyond our
imagination. Made in the divine
likeness, we are not just a piece of soil, a plant, or an animal, but we are
given a mind capable of knowing the universe, knowing ourselves, and knowing
our Maker. Amazingly, we have a heart
that loves our parents, sisters and brothers, friends, and all who are kind to
us, and all that are good to us. It is
this same heart that is capable of loving its Creator above everything and
everyone.
But God
still granted us the best gift that He ever prepared for His created
world. This is the gift of freedom. Freedom makes man worthy of being God’s image
because only man, from his free choice, can say to God: “I love you.” Stripped of the gift of freedom, man turns to
be just a beast in human appearance.
Unfortunately,
once abusing this gift of freedom, thinking of achieving his dreams without his
Lord the Creator, man was finally separated from God and fell into bottomless
depths of suffering and misery.
So we have a
series of evidences of man’s unfaithfulness and sinfulness in the first reading
from the second Book of Chronicles to the point that the author of the Book of
Chronicles wrote: “They mocked—I quote—the messengers of God, despised His
warnings, and scoffed at His prophets, until the anger of the Lord against His
people was so inflamed that there was no remedy.”
If we like,
we have these as the proof of our sinfulness, of our infidelity against God’s
unconditional love. And as Saint Paul
said in his Letter to the Romans: “the wages of sin are death.” This is why in the second reading Saint Paul
wrote to the Ephesians: “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this
is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may
boast.” Because when we have sinned, we
were dead in our transgressions. Saint
John so wrote in his first Letter: “Everyone who sins is already dead.” Sometimes we can see people eating, drinking,
singing, enjoying life, working and having dreams. But in the eyes of God, as Saint John wrote,
everyone who sins is already dead. And
this is eternal death. No more
remedy. But this is for man, this is not
for God. God can have many and different
ways to save the sinful man from the power of sin and death. And this we see:
when God decided to send His Only Son into the world to save the sinful human
race, he had to pay so high a price. As
Saint Peter wrote in his first Letter: “Sisters and brothers, we were saved not
by gold, silver, or any kind of precious stone, but we all were saved by the
blood of the Only Son of God.” People
say: love is very vulnerable. When we
love, we become vulnerable, we become very easy to be wounded. Parents because of their love for their
children get wounded and wounded again and again. People who love one another also become vulnerable;
they get wounded again and again. And
this also happens to God because according to Saint John: “God is love.” So, God becomes vulnerable because He so
loves us. And we have sinned, we
offended Him, we wounded Him. But
look! God, the very victim of man’s
unfaithfulness and sinfulness, makes the first move to go to sinners, the
criminals, and say: “Sorry, I forgive you, because I love you.” This is how God acted against man’s
sinfulness and unfaithfulness. And this
is the reason why in the Gospel according to Saint John that we have just
listened to he wrote: “God so loved the world—God so loved us, God so loved
each and one of us here—that He sent His Only Son into the world, to offer
Himself on the Cross as a sin offering for all of us, for you and for me, from
the first man to the last man in human history.
So we have no reason to doubt that God really loves us.
Sisters and
Brothers,
We are about
to complete our Lenten observances. We
have one more Sunday to go, and then we will celebrate the Holy Week, and we
will go through the three days of the Holy Week: Holy Thursday, with the
celebration of the Last Supper, when Christ bowed down to wash the feet of His
servants, of His disciples, to leave us the example of how we, Christians, His
disciples, have to love one another the way He loved us, the way He died for us. And only through this sign people can
recognize that we are really the disciples of Jesus. And then we will go to Good Friday when we
look how Jesus died on the Cross because He loved us. And then we will be ready to celebrate Easter
Sunday, the Resurrection, the glorious Rising from death of our Lord. According to Saint Paul, if we suffer with
Him, if we die with Him, and if we are ready to be crucified with Him on the
Cross to our sinfulness, to our past life, if we are ready to be buried with
Him, we will be raised up with him in glory.
We pray in
this Holy Mass for this gift of renewal not only of our body but also and above
all of our soul, heart, of our faith in the Only Son of God Who was sent to
save us from the power of sin and death.
Let the love of God overcome our fear, our doubt, and our
hesitation. Amen.
Fr. Francis Nguyen, O.P.
