All the Difference in the World

January 5 - Wednesday after Epiphany

1 John 4:11-18 / Psalm 72:1-2, 10, 12-13 / Mark 6:45-52

All the Difference in the World

I think King Solomon had it wrong. When God said in his dream, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you," (1 Kings 3:5) Solomon asked for discernment of heart (wisdom) so that he could judge rightly and rule justly.

If God were to offer me the chance to ask for anything I wanted, I would ask for love: the gift to love God with all that I am, to love my neighbor generously, and to let myself be loved with no agenda. I know my efforts to love are sometimes muted and half-hearted. I need God’s help to love as I ought. Yes, I would ask for love.

In today’s first reading we have the best explanation of God: God is love (1 John 4:16). While love does not exhaust who God is — for God is also wisdom, knowledge, peace, power, truth, life, etc. — love informs all God’s other characteristics. Love gives wisdom and knowledge their purpose, placing them at the service of human freedom. Love makes peace far more than the absence of conflict; love makes peace harmony. Love makes power the servant rather than the master. Love makes truth the revelation, not simply of what is, but of what is meant to be. Love makes justice a matter of healing and reconciliation rather than punishment and revenge. And love makes life worth living.

In the opening lines of the Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est Pope Benedict XVI makes an overarching claim for 1 John 4:16: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.”

“…in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”

In this Christmas Season we celebrate that loving encounter with God: Jesus Christ born for us. As the pope says, Christian love is not a lofty idea, it is God loving us, and it is the only adequate response we can give to God’s love for us: to love God in return – however disproportionately - and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

If God is love, it makes all the difference in the world.

• Reflect on the words, “God is love.”  What does this mean to you?  How has this truth changed your life?