Readings for Sunday, May 18, 2025

Fifth Sunday of Easter

[Jesus said,] “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

— John 13:35

Click here to find the daily readings on the USCCB website

Opening the Word

Editor’s Note: Fr. Peter shares insights from a variety of voices on the Sunday readings.

The Other Side of Love

We have an instinct to love; this is something woven into the foundation of human life. It’s also a godly instinct, for anything embedded into the human spirit with such intensity must surely be of God. In fact, it is how God is creating a new heaven and a new earth, thereby making all things new as is written in the Book of Revelation. So intense is that inclination to love, we read in the first letter of John that God is love.

While our culture tends to romanticize love, the reality is that, all too often, if we are seriously committed to loving someone, it can also be a lonely effort. Love is not always romantic or satisfying. At times, it can be demanding and even harsh. One day, when I was meeting with an engaged couple in preparation for their marriage, I asked them, as I often do, for their definition of love. Usually, couples are tongue-tied when I ask that question. They know they’re in love, and, to them, that seems to be enough. This time, however, the young groom-to-be did not hesitate. He said that love is caring for someone even when they are unlovable — an insightful definition, for it is precisely during such times that we need someone’s love. It is the weakest moments of life that are in need of rebuilding, the loneliest moments of life that are in need of someone reaching out a hand, and the darkest moments of life that are in need of light. When that happens, creation is made new.

~Fr. Joseph Juknialis

Reflect

What is my definition of love?How do I live it?

 

Fr. Joseph Juknialis, a retired priest of the Milwaukee Archdiocese, is the new author of reflections for Liguori Publications’ Our Parish Community bulletins. Fr. Joe has served in ministry as a parish priest and a teacher of homiletics at St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee. Retirement has given him time for hiking, canoeing, writing, poetry, gin rummy, the Green Bay Packers, and pursuing his appreciation of nature. In noting the most amazing aspect of his life, Fr. Joe says, “God has always brought me to the place I should be.”