May 9, 2021 6th Sunday Easter B
May 9, 2021 6th Sunday Easter B
There is a saying in the Talmud, the book of Jewish laws, that exhorts one to perform good deeds, ”Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” Irena Sendler’s father lived this saying everyday as a medical doctor. He had a particular love for Jewish people, and he died of typhus while treating Jewish neighbors who had typhus. At his deathbed, her father told her, “Irena, if you see a man drowning, you must try to save him even if you cannot swim.” Irena asked him, “If I can’t swim, won’t both of us drown?” “You must do something,” her father said. “You cannot watch him drown.”
Our Heavenly Father saw us falling into sin and darkness, and he wanted to restore us to His Kingdom. St. John wrote, “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins...” (1 John 4:9-11) What kind of love does the Father have for us? He sees us not as strangers but as his own flesh and blood. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
For the past five weeks as we read the scriptures, we have journeyed with disciples who witnessed the Resurrection of Jesus. As they recalled Jesus’ words and actions during the course of three years, the disciples remembered the instructions from Jesus on mercy, forgiveness of sins, washing of feet, breaking bread, being a good shepherd, laying down one’s life for a friend, remaining in his love, and relying on the Holy Spirit. The disciples came to realize after the resurrection that the purpose of their lives was to reflect the life and love of Christ. This message was not just for the disciples of past but for every generation of disciples since then.
Christian love, one writer said, is a river of freshness that wells up within us and carries us out to others, spilling over into a life of service. “When we know Christ, when we have intimacy with Him, we will see Him everywhere and be drawn to Him in the face of the helpless, the suffering, and the poor.” Some have mentioned that a mother’s love for her child is analogous to a Christian love, for her love is sacrificial to the point of giving up her life. In 2007, a year before Irena died, she gave an interview in which she said, “Recently we celebrated Mother’s Day here in Poland. I would like to celebrate that day in the name of some of the most anguished mothers in the world--Jewish mothers who had to part with their children during those terrible times. And let us reflect on those Polish women who took the Jewish children in and brought them up as their own, risking their lives every day and every hour in the process. They loved those children so much that when the war ended, they could hardly bear to part with them. So let us give thought to those mothers.” When someone praised Irena Sandler for her work, she replied, “Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory.”
“He who changes one person, changes the world entire.” That is how Irena Sendler viewed life, and that view moved her to save so many children during World War II. The resurrection of Jesus reminds us how one’s life offered out of love can change the course of the entire history. Irena’s life is a challenge for each of us to care for and about someone other than the person we see in the mirror. You may think that we do not face the kind of circumstances Irena Sendler faced. However, when we have the eyes to see beyond the surface, people in our own community face their own dire circumstances--such as poverty of love, respect, or resources--and so there are opportunities to reflect Christ’s love to help better the world. In what way can we live out St. John’s exhortation, ”if God so loved us, we also must love one another”?
