Ac 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48/ 1 Jn 4:7-10/ Jn 15:9-7
In life, we take many things for granted.
Even what is essential and necessary for our survival, we can also take it for granted.
For example, the air that we breathe, we just take it that it should be there and always available.
Another thing that we take as a matter of fact and which we expect to be readily available is … fire!
Fire was one of the earliest of human discoveries.
Its discovery and usage are multiple – for light and heat, to cook food, for warmth and protection.
With the usage of fire, human existence and activity moved to a higher level.
But then of course, with its ease of availability, it is also easily taken for granted.
Until we have to start fire from scratch. Only then we will know how difficult it can be to get a fire started.
So if we can take things like fire for granted, then what other essential and fundamental things do we also take for granted?
Well, in today’s gospel, Jesus tells us what it is that we so often take for granted.
This might sound like trivia, but in the gospel passage that we have just heard, the word “love” is mentioned NINE times.
Hence Jesus is telling us that love is crucial and critical in our lives, and even more so for our survival. And yet we so often take it for granted.
Jesus even puts it as a commandment for us: Love one another as I have loved you.
So to love God and to love others is not a suggestion, nor is it an option.
And in Jesus, we can see that there is no greater love because He laid down His life on the cross in order to save us, and to show us the meaning of love.
Thanks be to God, the commandment of Jesus has been carried out.
The world can certainly do without fire, but we won’t survive without love.
Without a doubt, love has certainly made the world a better place, and love has certainly made us better persons.
What we see here is a LIGHT BULB. It is an ordinary item, something that can be taken for granted.
But the light bulb is also a product of love. Let me share with you the story of the light bulb.
One day, in the year 1855, a 7 year-old boy came home crying.
When his mother asked him why, he told her that his school teacher called him “addled”, a word that means slow, confused and mixed-up (stupid!).
When the boy asked the teacher what it meant, he crudely told him that his brains were all scrambled.
Well, the matter of fact was that the boy was very curious, he liked to ask a lot of questions, so the teacher thought of him as rather “unteachable”.
So, the mother told the crying boy: My son is not addled. If nobody wants to teach my son, then I will teach him. She then proceeded to teach him at home.
That was in 1855, many years later, when he died in 1931, homes and businesses briefly turned off their electric light bulbs in honour of this person, who as a boy was termed as slow, confused, mixed up.
Well, that person was none other than Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors.
And his inventions included the sound recorder, the motion picture camera, as well as improving the telegraph and the telephone. And of course, the electric light bulb!
For someone who had only about 3 months of formal schooling, Thomas Edison owned 1093 US patents, as well as hundreds in other countries.
All because his mother took the trouble to teach him, when others thought he was hopeless.
Thomas Edison said this of his mother: My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me, and I felt I have someone to live for, someone I must not disappoint.
A lovely and touching tribute from a great inventor, Thomas Edison, to an ordinary and simple mother, Nancy Edison, his mother.
It can also be a fitting tribute to all mothers as we honour them with Mother’s Day.
And as we give thanks to God for our mothers, we can also see the reality of the commandment of love that Jesus spoke about in the gospel.
In our mothers, we see how the commandment of love takes on flesh and blood.
In fact, our mothers can even say this to us: Just as God has loved me, so I have loved you.
Yes, our mothers laid down their lives for us. They have shown us the reality of God’s love.
They have carried out the commandment of love.
Nancy Edison taught her son the best she could, and he turned out to be a great inventor.
Dear mothers, teach your children the best you could, and teach them the commandment of love.
Let them always remember that you taught them this commandment, that you showed them how to carry out this commandment, and that they must keep this commandment if they want to have a future.
And let us also learn from our mothers to do the small things with great love.
That would ensure our survival, and the survival of the human race.