Sunday, May 5, 2024 – Sixth Easter Sunday - Cycle B Readings: Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48, Psalm 98 “The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving pow-er”, 1 John 4:7-10, John 15:9-17

                                                  Love Begets Happiness
Love has no limits. In the Gospel Christ calls us friends; on this earth there is no greater sign of confidence than this, and for this reason happiness reaches its fullness. The source of happiness is that love that does not distinguish between persons, that does not discriminate, that does not pick and choose.
 
Sisters and brothers:
 1. Many of our contemporaries do not understand the meaning of true happiness. They see it as a parenthesis in the middle of a boring existence in which worry, insecurity and pain are predominate. For this reason we hear more and more laughs and see less and less smiles.      "A fool raises his voice in laughter, but the prudent man at the most smiles gently", says Sirach. The one who bears God in his soul, perceives the imperative need of transmitting him with deep, serene and permanent happiness; it is the uncontrollable need to pass it on which penetrates to the depths of the heart, which reassures it.
 
2. "There is more happiness in giving than in receiving" A mom's happiness is her children's happiness. This is an infallible theorem. But the greatest happiness comes with having God in our hearts. Where there is no love, there is no life and we only find the absence of God; it is then that we desire to fill this empty space with with false idols.
 
     On the other hand the person who has Christian happiness is a bearer of a new message of solidarity, of peace, of love; enlightened by happiness he knows how to welcome life with thanksgiving and veneration; it is the attitude of the person who has discovered that all of life is a gift. Only the one who makes the world a happier place is truly happy. Only the person who knows how to give happiness knows happiness. Happiness is contagious.
 
3. "The happiness of the heart and of the face". Paul Claudel places this message in the mouth of one of his characters: "My God, you have given me the possibility of having it that anyone who looks at me, would desire to sing, as if I had intoned for him in a low voice". Ask yourself honestly: does your smile reveal God's presence in your soul to others? Does the world get better when you do something to lift it up? The balm of sincere Christian happiness could once again bring, among our brothers and sisters in the faith, the resurgence of exemplary charity.
 
     Happiness imperatively needs to communicate itself through authentic friendship. Let us remember that the measure of love is love without measure. Authentic love knows neither strategies nor reckonings; for this reason love implies generosity, gratitude and happiness. Self-interested love is the antithesis of love. "Egoism is like unto those Egyptian bandits who only embrace their victims in order to strangle them."
 
"Sing out with your voice", says Saint Augustine, "sing with your heart; sing with your lips; sing with your whole life." Sisters and brothers: Let us bring Christian happiness wherever we go: to our family, to our workplace, to our friends. Let it not be the happiness that the world gives, but that which Christ brought by his Incarnation. Only thus will we have the face of those who have risen.
 
Source:
ePriest.com / Best Practices and Homily Resources for Catholic Priests