Gods love never wears out (Jn 3:14-21) A businessman visited a farm. He noticed a weather vane (a revolving pointer to show the direction of the wind, typically mounted on top of a building) on top of the roof of the barn. It was windy, and the weather vane was turning fast. Directly below the instrument were the words painted in large letters: “God is love.” The businessman was curious. There must be some reason why those words were written beneath such a changeable thing as a weather vane. So he asked the farmer: “Do you think God’s love is so fickle and inconstant, like the wind?” “Quite the contrary,” the farmer replied. “It means that, no matter which way the wind blows, God’s love is constant and unchanging.” Our Gospel today is one of the most quoted citation used on banners, on books, on posters, etc. We rejoice because this single verse reminds us that the heart of the Gospel is God’s love and our belief. But there’s more to today’s Gospel than that and to understand this it is good to situate it within the global context of John 3. Nicodemus, the Pharisee approached Jesus at night. He acknowledged Jesus as someone who had come from God and he really wanted to be his follower. In his dialogue with Nicodemus, there are three basic images we can meditate on: the necessity of being born again in order to live a new life in the Spirit; the sacrifice of Jesus which brings salvation to believers; and God’s immense love for the world, which he expresses by giving us his Son and to which the only appropriate response is for us to now love others as Jesus does, becoming ourselves channels of God’s love for the world. From this last image we may concentrate on the citation: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. The fourth Sunday of Lent is also called Laetare Sunday. Laetare in Latin means, rejoice! In the middle of the serious season of Lent, the Church invites us to rejoice: “Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her; rejoice with her, you who mourned for her” (Isa. 66:10-11). This is precisely because of this Good News: God is love, and His love for us sinful humanity is constant, generous and self-sacrificing: For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son (Jn 3:16). If there is one question that can elicit the greatest number of diverse responses, it is the question: What is love? Each person has his own understanding of love. It has become, unfortunately, the most common victim of what Pope Benedict XVI called the “dictatorship of relativism.” So, what is love, in its real and objective sense? A four-year-old boy went to the house of a neighbor: an elderly man whose wife just died recently. When he saw that the man was crying, the little boy climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. Later that day, his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor. The little boy said: “Nothing. I just helped him cry.” What the boy did was quite simple which the world truly needs nowadays: compassion. This word comes from two Latin words: cum (with) and passio (suffering). So, literally it means to “suffer with,” to be one with people in their sufferings. Compassion is the most precise expression of love. This is what we hear in the Gospel today: For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that all who believe in him might be saved (Jn 3:16). The world has been in bad shape due to sin and people are suffering under the slavery of sin and the dominion of evil. God cannot be a passive bystander. He is one with us in our sufferings. So, in the fullness of time, He decided to send His only Son, born of the Virgin Mary, so that he might be one with us and suffer with us. Hence, the most perfect image of total self-giving, and the best expression of perfect love, is the image of Jesus dying on the cross: No one has greater love than this, to lay down ones life for ones friends (Jn 15:13). That is love, in its real and objective sense. The Greek word used by the Gospels for such kind of love is agape. As we enter the last two weeks of Lent, the Church invites us to hope and to rejoice, as we reflect on God’s self-sacrificing love for us. He truly loves us, despite our being sinful and disobedient, He is willing to suffer and die for us. This is more than enough reason to smile and rejoice every day. God loves us! But love is not a one-way movement. In order for love to grow and bear fruit, it has to be reciprocated. So, if God loves us so, what should be our response? It should be to follow the most important command of Jesus at the Last Supper: “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” To love, should be natural for us. We all come from God who is love. To be greedy and selfish does not belong to our nature. Unfortunately, such is not the case in reality. That is why it is said that while God usually gives and forgives, man, on the other hand, usually gets and forgets! As long as we do not obey the commandment of love, the world will continue to be in pain and trouble. As long as our selfishness and greed rule our lives, poverty and shortage of resources are here to stay. As a saying goes: “The world is enough for mans need, but the world is not enough for mans greed.” The call and challenge for us, therefore, is to love in the manner that Jesus loved us. It is not easy, though, for it necessarily involves total self-giving and true compassion to be ready to suffer with. As St. Gemma Galgani, an Italian Mystic once said, “If you really want to love Jesus, first learn to suffer, because suffering teaches you to love.” St. John the apostle, spent the last part of his life in exile in the Greek island of Patmos. It is said that when he was already too old, he would just be carried to Church on Sundays. And he would always address the congregation. Each time, his message would be the same: “My dear children, love one another.” After some time, a disciple asked him, “Master, why do you say the same message over and over again?” He answered: “Because it is the command of the Lord. And if it is followed, it is enough.” Our hearts are sometimes hardened and our ears are closed and quite often we do not listen to these words of the Lord. Even when we do listen to them, often we do not believe them. Today, on this fourth Sunday of Lent when we should rejoice, let us also open our hearts and listen to God. He only wants to tell us that He loves us and invites us to live a life of commitment to Him. God is love (CCC 214, 218-21), a love made visible by Christ in his sacrifice for us (CCC 606). If we understood God’s love, and how we separate ourselves from it by sin, we would weep as bitterly as the exiles in Babylon (Psalm). Lent is about our journey to accept God’s love for us, God’s divine presence in our lives. It is about accepting that Jesus is truly man and truly God. It is a journey to accept our own sinfulness and to be able to give that sinfulness back to God in asking for forgiveness. Lent is a great time to begin some serious spiritual reading, well-rooted in sound Catholic tradition, that will help us to grow in the knowledge of God and of his saving love. Prayer: Lord, your love is like an ocean we can see its beginning but not its end! Amen.