The Source of All Love: From Divine Gift to Human Gift

Voice over by Carol San San Lwin

1Jn 4:7-10, Psalm: 71, Mk 6:34-44

My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

At the heart of our faith, beyond all the rules and rituals, lies one stunning, simple, and transformative truth: God is love. Not just that God loves, but that His very essence, His identity, is Love itself. Every act of charity, every moment of mercy we encounter or offer, is a spark from this divine fire. Today’s readings reveal this love to us as both its ultimate source and its most practical, life-giving expression.

Saint John, in his first letter, delivers this truth with breathtaking clarity: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.” He establishes a fundamental reality: our capacity to love is not merely a human virtue, but a participation in the very life of God. Then he defines love not by our initiative, but by God’s: “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” True love, in its ultimate Christian definition, is sacrificial gift. It is the God who is Love, stepping into our world in the person of Jesus, and offering Himself for our salvation. This is the model and the power for all our loving.

This divine, sacrificial love is then made visible in the Gospel. Jesus, seeing a vast crowd that is like “sheep without a shepherd,” is moved with pity. His love is not a vague sentiment; it is an active compassion that engages their need. He teaches them at length, tending to their spiritual hunger. But as the day wears on, the disciples see a practical problem: physical hunger. Their solution is to send the crowd away. Jesus’ solution is to transform their meager resources—five loaves and two fish—into an abundance that feeds thousands, with baskets left over.

Here is the perfect icon of the love John describes. Jesus looks upon our human poverty—our spiritual hunger and our physical needs—with a heart of pity. He takes what little we have to offer, our small acts of generosity and our limited strength, blesses it, breaks it (for love is always broken and shared), and multiplies it beyond all imagining. The feeding of the five thousand is a sign of the Eucharist, the ultimate gift where Jesus gives us His entire self as food, and it is a blueprint for Christian community: when we offer our little to Christ, He uses it to nourish the world.

What does this mean for us? First, it is an immense comfort. When we feel our love is inadequate—too weak to forgive a deep hurt, too tired to serve, too limited in resources—we remember that love is of God. We are not the source; we are channels. We begin by receiving His love, confessed in the Crucifix and given in the Eucharist. As St. Augustine prayed, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Our love finds its power in resting in His love first.

Second, it is a call to practical compassion. Like Jesus, we are to look upon the crowds in our lives—our family, coworkers, the lonely neighbor, the struggling stranger—with eyes of pity, not indifference. We are to offer our “loaves and fish,” our time, our patience, our material goods, however small they seem, trusting Jesus to multiply their effect. Mother Teresa, a modern saint of practical love, embodied this: “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

Let us go forth today, then, assured that we are loved by Love Himself. Let that love transform our hearts, so that we may look with compassion and offer our lives in trust, knowing that in His hands, even our smallest gift can become a miracle of grace for a hungry world. Amen.