Dalton Gardens Chapel, 16 January 2026
Homily notes by Michael Whelan SM
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First Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:7
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 32
Gospel: John 15:1-9
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There is a promise in the Bible that is repeated over and over again: “I am with you!”
See, for example, where God speaks to Moses from the burning bush: “‘I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’ But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ He said, ‘I will be with you’” (Exodus 3:10-12).
See also, for example, where the prophet Isaiah reminds the people of the promise: “Do not fear … I have called you by name, you are mine. … I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:1-2).
At Christmas we celebrate this promise, recalling that the infant born in Bethlehem is called, “Emmanuel,” meaning “God is with us.”
That promise is at the very heart of the Bible. It is at the heart of the Incarnation. It is therefore at the very heart of our daily lives as Christians. “I am with you!” Everywhere, all the time, in our daily lived experience, that promise is being spoken to each of us. And it carries an invitation: “Let me love you!”
We discover what it means to be a Christian when we hear that invitation in the depths of our beings! It is an invitation to be in love – literally, to be in love!
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Which brings us to our celebration today and the Readings we have just heard.
In the Gospel we heard the promise and the invitation summed up in Jesus’ words: “Abide in my love!”
Jesus does not give is a moral project or a specific political or cultural way of life. Rather, he enables a new creation, a radical way of being not possible for us to attain by our own efforts. He calls it the “kingdom.”
The “kingdom” is a state of being in which love casts out fear, truth replaces the lie, peace overwhelms violence.
Sixty years ago – yesterday – Tony and Jan, you entered into a unique celebration of this way of being. As husband and wife and parents, it has been your privilege and responsibility to be a place where God’s promise is daily being fulfilled. You have borne witness to each other and your children, your friends and your extended family, that God is with us and is constantly saying: “Let me love you!”
St Paul reminds us that true love transcends infatuation or mere romance or selfishness masquerading as love. True love is the presence of God and it is very concrete: “(It) is patient; … kind; … not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
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I have a final observation, one which is born of my own human journey of more than 78 years and my experience as a priest of more than 53 years. I wonder if we would not be better off using the word “care” rather than love? It seems to me that God’s promise to be with us is fulfilled – incarnated – most obviously when we care for each other. There is probably no word misused as much as “love.” The simple business of care does not carry the baggage that love seems to carry. It is more obviously other-centred.
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