Rejoice in the Love of God

The fourth Sunday of Lent is also called Laetare Sunday. In the middle of Lent, we are asked to look forward with joyful expectation to that day when the angels will sing "Gaudete at laetare, resurrexit sicut dixit" Rejoice and be glad. He has risen as he said. At the cause for rejoicing is the love with which God did not spare His only Son from death to give us life. The love of God which loves us to the end is indeed a cause for rejoicing. As Pope Benedict said in Spe Salvi, "He who has experienced this love of God is the person who has hope."

Yes, in the midst of all the paperworks and reports and requirements that await completion as the school year comes to a close, let us quietly rejoice for we are loved, to the full, to the end.

If You Love Him, Set Him Free

This is the advise usually given to someone who has difficulty giving up a loved one... a boyfriend who's got a new girl, a son wanting to enter the seminary, a friend who died to suddenly. We have to let go, but we won't, we can't,,, because it can be very painful, because we so love that person.

But that is not the case with Abraham. He loved his Son, but there was a love in his heart which was greater than his love for his Son, His love, His reverence for Yahweh. But love for God does not cancel out love for neighbor. In fact, the first leads to the other. Can't we say that precisely because of his love for his Son, he wanted him to be with God the soonest possible. Hence, paradoxically, it is in giving up that we truly know we are. When we give of ourselves, we know we are Christians indeed.

In the Gospel it is very clear. Jesus is proclaimed as Son of God. He is the beloved Son of God, who precisely bec of His being the beloved, He is given up to be delivered unto death. Because of God's love for Him, He allowed Him to explore the greatness, the depths and beauty of humaity and of the world. God has "set him free" "to humanize world." A tall order indeed. And that is the meaning of the Resurrection.