“Whoever Loves God Must Also Love His Brother”

 

Thursday after Epiphany


 

1 John 4:19–5:4

The sentence is brief, but it is not comfortable.
It is not a phrase meant to decorate a speech.
It is a statement that places us face to face with the truth of our faith:

“Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

Saint John does not speak in conditional terms.
He does not say it would be good, or it would be advisable.
He says must.
And that word is not a threat; it is a consequence.

First, this sentence affirms something essential:
love for God is not an abstract idea or a private feeling.
It is a reality that must be verified in concrete life.

Loving God does not consist only in praying, believing, or participating in religious rituals.
All of that matters, but it is not enough.
True love always seeks a place where it can be expressed,
and that place — Scripture tells us — is the brother or sister.

The brother is not a distraction on the way to God.
He is the way itself.
With his story, his fragility, his way of being.
There, love for God becomes visible.

This sentence affirms that Christian faith is incarnate.
God is not loved from a distance.
He is loved in daily patience, in forgiveness, in mercy, in concrete care.

But this same sentence also challenges us, and it does so strongly.

It challenges a religiosity that remains inward,
a faith that speaks a great deal about God but little with people.
It challenges the temptation to claim love for God
while avoiding the brother because he is difficult, inconvenient, or different.

Saint John is clear:
if we are not able to love the brother we can see,
how can we claim to love God, whom we cannot see?

This sentence challenges a faith that seeks God
but runs away from human complexity,
a spirituality that hides in the spiritual
in order to avoid real relationships.

Because loving the brother is not easy.
The brother can wound us.
He can fail us.
He may not respond as we hope.

But it is precisely there that love is tested.

This sentence reveals a demanding truth:
we do not love God better than the people who stand before us.
Our love for God takes the face of our neighbor.

Christianity, then, does not offer a love without risk,
but a love lived in the midst of real life,
with all that this entails.

Brothers and sisters, this word does not come to accuse us.
It comes to guide us.

It reminds us that authentic faith does not close in on itself,
does not protect itself from others,
and does not exist without commitment.

Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Not as a heavy burden,
but as the only way for love of God to be real.

For where love becomes concrete,
there God remains.

Amen.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran

Image
  Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran November 9, 2025 (Ezekiel 47:1–2, 8–9, 12 / 1 Corinthians 3:9c–11, 16–17 / John 2:13–22)   Today the universal Church celebrates the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran — the Pope’s cathedral, the mother and head of all the churches of Rome and of the world. It’s not an architectural feast, but a deeply spiritual one. We don’t celebrate a building; we celebrate the mystery of a God who chose to dwell among us. From the tent in the desert to the great sanctuaries, the true temple has always been the believing people in whom God makes His presence known. Ezekiel offers an extraordinary vision: from the right side of the temple flows a small stream that becomes a great river. As it moves forward, it heals the salty waters, nourishes the earth, and makes everything bloom. It is the image of the Spirit that would later flow from the pierced side of Christ, the new temple — blood and water that bring l...
Read more

Not Fiction: When God Intervenes in History

Image
  Friday of the Third Week of Advent Human beings, throughout history, tend to grow weary of the ordinary. When life feels repetitive, when routines weigh heavily and answers seem distant, we begin to look for something that lifts us beyond the everyday. We do not always seek deep explanations; often, we look for extraordinary stories , narratives that entertain us, that allow us to dream, that restore the sense that there is something greater than our daily routine. That is why the contemporary world is filled with superheroes . Movies, series, and novels present figures with extraordinary powers, capable of saving the world and defeating evil through superhuman strength. They are fascinating characters, but in the end, they are fictional . They are born from human imagination to fill a void, to respond to the desire that someone might come and rescue us from what we cannot fix on our own. Yet today, the Word of God presents us with something far more surprising. Not fictiona...
Read more

“God Takes the Weak by the Hand and Makes Them Strong”

Image
  “God Takes the Weak by the Hand and Makes Them Strong”   Brothers and sisters, today’s first reading opens with one of the most tender and most powerful lines in Scripture: “I am the Lord your God, who take hold of your right hand; it is I who help you.” It is not a command, not a reproach—just a gesture. A Father bending down to lift a child who can barely walk. Israel felt fragile, insignificant, overshadowed by powerful empires. Isaiah calls them “the worm of Jacob,” not to belittle them, but to remind them that their worth does not come from their size but from the hand that holds them . And then God uses a surprising image: “I will make you a new threshing sledge with double teeth.” In biblical times, such a threshing sledge was not a light tool; it was a strong, reinforced instrument capable of breaking hard ground, leveling what seemed impossible, preparing soil for new seed. It is as if God were saying: “You feel weak… but in My hands you can face what on...
Read more