3. I mentioned this in a previous email, but I think got lost in a crowded update list. Fr. Gratton's order with the VT national guard end at the end of May. So he will return by June!
4. I acquired a microphone to improve the sound quality of the recorded Masses ... but need an adaptor. If anyone has a newer iphone to audio adapter, would you let me know? I have one on the way, so I would not need it for long; just this weekend.
In the Gospel today, Jesus says No greater love has a man than this, to lay down his life for his friends. It is in the midst of a powerful and moving passage from the Last Supper. It is certainly a solemn moment, and Jesus emphasizes the love he bears for the Apostles by reference to his impending death.
Someone might wonder, though, how to square these solemn words with words spoken earlier in the Gospel: if you love those who love you, what profit is there in that? Even pagans do the same... I tell you, love your enemies, and you Father in heaven will repay you.
Well, which one is it? Is the love of friends the greater love, or the love of enemies? How should we understand Jesus' two sets of teaching? Certainly the author of all truth is not proposing a contradiction.
St. Paul weighs into the difficulty, saying this: One will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
St. Paul seems to side with the love of enemies being greater. Thus God proves or demonstrates his great love by dying for us even while we are sinners. But if we take this view, we run into trouble down the road. Are we to think that the love between the persons of the Holy Trinity, who should certainly be counted as super-eminent friends, is less than his love of sinners? How could God's love among himself be less than towards creatures? Or take the case of the saints in heaven. They are friends of God. Do they love him less than they love sinners? That would be baffling.
The solution follows a clue that St. Paul snuck into his statement. He said that God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. In other words, the love of God is most manifest and plainly apparent in loving sinners, because we see how far it reaches, so to speak. It is not a greater love, but it is more obvious. It stands out. But we should say to ourselves, "if God loves us so much that he is willing to die even for a sinner, how much more must he love the saints, and all the more himself."