WORD 2day: Thursday after Epiphany
January 8, 2026 - 1 John 4: 19- 5:4; Luke 4: 14-22
To love, is not an extraordinary quality! For a human person, especially for us sons and daughters of God who is love, love has to be our essential nature! The fundamental question is not whether I am ready to love or not; it is whether I am a Christian or not! If I am a 'Christ'ian, then love has to be my second nature. Where there is no love, there is no God... where there is no God, there is no Spiritual life! True spirituality is true love.
The correlation of two readings bring out to us an all important point: to love is a charism given by the Spirit to each of us; to love is a commitment on behalf of my neighbour. That difficulties and sacrifices are involved, is a matter of fact. But that in no way can take away the call that I have recieved: the call to love.
Our call to love does not come from merely a commandment, but from an experience. We love because God loved us, God loves us and God will always love us! When we don't love the other, we not only hate them, but we conceal ourselves from the love of God, which flows freely towards you and me! I allow the love of God to fill me only in as much as I love the other - they are proportionate processes... one defines and determines the other.
We are called to love because God loves us; we are able to love because God has always loved us.