UNIVERSALITY OF SALVATION AND LOVE.

May 9, 2021
Sixth Sunday of Easter - B.

Readings: Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; Ps 98:1, 2-3, 3-4; 1 Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15:9-17.

A Nigerian proverb says, “It is the self-love of the king parrot that made him become talkative.” And a Namibian proverb adds, “Love is a despot who spares no one.”

The Lord died and he has risen as a ransom for human sin. The Salvation he brought is not reserved for a specific group or believers nor regionalist or ethnocentric. It is opened to all, Jewish and Pagans, believers and non-believers. No one is excluded from the redemptive work of Christ.

Many are there who think that only those who come to church every Sunday, those who are baptized, confirmed, married, or ordained, and who receive every day the Holy Communion will be saved. If that was true, then what about all who have never heard about Jesus?

The world, according to the surveys counts 7.8 billion inhabitants. In that 7.8, only 2.382 billion are Christians. And in that 2.382 billion, only about 1.329 billion are Catholics. Then, if salvation is only for Christians or maybe only for Catholics, what about the great 5 billion? Will God send them all to hell?

To this question, the great theologian Karl Rahner has an answer. He speaks about "Anonymous Christians". This theory declares that people who have never heard the Christian Gospel might be saved through Christ. Non-Christians could have "in [their] basic orientation and fundamental decision," wrote Rahner, "accepted the salvific grace of God, through Christ, although [they] may never have heard of the Christian revelation." The salvation of Christ is not limited or confined only in the four walls of a Church, nor in a specific denomination. Salvation is all about a principle of life: that is love.

In today's liturgy, we learn that God reveals himself to his friends as love. That revelation, however, is not exclusivist but universal. God’s friendship is universal, open to all. God has no favorites. All are favored and loved by him. In the first reading, through his visit to Cornelius' house and the work of God's Spirit, Peter can affirm that the Pagans have received the Holy Spirit just as much as we have. The Risen Lord, through his Spirit, went ahead of Peter and his companions to make new believers among the Pagans. And so, even before being baptized, these ones received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

As Christians, we should not boast so much of our belonging to Christ and therefore of our salvation. For, salvation is a free gift from God. He opens whom he wants to that grace without looking at his origin, language, color, region, or religion. God wants to save all of his creatures without any exclusion.

The only thing that could facilitate our access to salvation, Saint John says in the second reading, is love. Since love comes from God, only love can save us. And Don Orione could say, "Charity and only charity will save the world." The Holy Man of Tortona, like a prophet seeing ahead of his time, wrote these lines that perfectly apply to our time: “We live in a century which is full of coldness and death in the life of the spirit. Everything is closed upon itself, only pleasure, vanity, passions, and the life of this world is to be seen, and nothing else. Who will give life to this generation which is dead to the life of God, if not the breath of charity of Jesus Christ? The face of the earth will be renewed with the warmth of Spring, but the moral world will only have a new life with the warmth of love.” (Cf. Don Orione, a letter of 2-May-1920, Letters Bk. I, 180-184).

For, love opens our horizon to the horizon of God and disposes us to see in our brothers and sisters another self to be loved the way we love ourselves. It is through love that we can know God. And knowledge of God means salvation. Thus St. John adds, "anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because, God is love."

What we celebrate at Easter, the great mystery of our faith and salvation is nothing but the outpouring of God’s greatest love. It is out of love that he sent his Son into the world and sacrificed him as a ransom for human sin.

Jesus, in the Gospel of John, tells his disciples that no longer are they slaves or servants, but his friends. And that is on one condition, by obeying his commandments. What the Lord, before his passion, commanded his disciples is to love one another as he has loved them.

Sincere love has no color and is not exclusionist. Love opens our world to others and makes us brothers of each other. Where there is love, there is no discrimination, racism, segregation, or division.

Our world is what it is today, for a unique reason: there is no sincere love on earth. Our love, if love it is, is egocentric and revolved around the self. We love others for what they are for us. In that sense, we choose whom we wish to love and we hate others and do all kinds of evil to them.

At Easter, the Lord tells us that genuine love, like his salvation, is universal and open to all. Therefore, either we love all and everyone the way we are loved by him, or we love no one but ourselves and so die in our indifference and selfishness.