B: 6th Sun of Easter (6 May 2018) - THE GREATEST LOVE OF ALL - Jn 15:9-17

“The greatest love of all is easy to achieve. Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all”.

This is a line from the all-time-hit-song “The Greatest Love of All,” popularized by George Benson and Whitney Houston in 1977 and 1985, respectively. Originally composed for Muhammad Ali’s biographical film, this song has to be examined vis-à-vis the ongoing struggle for racial identity and equal opportunities in the 20th century. Understandably, loving oneself is described in its lyrics as the greatest love of all.

Our contemporary era, though, takes these words literally: the love of the self is lived today as the world’s main value. Altruistic and philanthropic behaviors are becoming rare. Service with no ulterior motives is a luxury. Compassion and forgiveness are associated with the weak. Loving the self is the primary concern of all!

Our gospel today teaches otherwise, “This is my commandment: Love one another as I have loved you! There is no greater love than this, to give one’s life for one’s friends (Jn 15:12-13).”

Jesus preaches against the primacy of worldly values in John 15. He enumerates innovative perspectives that counter this mundane point of view, viz., loving one another (vv. 12, 17), offering one’s life for a friend (v. 13), viewing the self not as a slave but God’s friend (v. 15), believing that one is God’s chosen emissary (v. 16a), and trusting that whatever one asks God will give (v. 16b). All of these things can be summed up into the one word of “love.” Yet this love is not solely a love for the self, but is something that is directed to God via the selfless loving of others.

In the Philippines, we are dismayed by the brutal murder of Fr. Mark Anthony Ventura who was gunned down after celebrating the mass last April 29. We cannot help but remember too the slaying of Fr. Marcelito Paez who was also slain some four months back by unidentified men. These are only two of several incidents when religious workers are killed, most logically to silence them from speaking and fighting for the rights of the oppressed. The only consolation we have now is that they died a martyr’s death, and had displayed the greatest love of all, true to our gospel today.

However, we ask: How come this value of love is not propagated in our society? Why are these incognito killers emboldened to do these heinous crimes at broad day light? Why is it that more and more unaccounted deaths are not even solved? Why is it that the general public is so numb about this vigilante mode of killings… some even patronizing it as a means for social cleansing?

I opine that the abovementioned scenarios continue to exist because today’s way of thinking is: the greatest love of all is loving the self. As long as one is secure, and the society he/she lives in appears to be safe and is menace-free for his/her family, an ordinary Filipino will not care about the number of lives lost, the human rights violated, nor the mode they are unjustly conducted.

It will indeed take a truly devote Christ-follower to counter this. Maybe, it is high time to ask ourselves… which love do we promote: the love of the self, or the Christian way of selfless loving.

- Rex Fortes, CM