1. The Epistles and Gospels selected for the Pentecost cycle of
Sundays have love as their general theme. They deal not only with the
love we owe to Christ and God, which is only to be thankful for the
unspeakable blessing of forgiveness of sins and salvation through
Christ's blood and death, but also of the love we owe our neighbor;
not a love in return for favors, but one that unceasingly gives,
forgives and works all good even when unrequited.
2. John here admonishes the Christian to exercise the virtue of love.
Considering the evident rarity of love among men, this admonition is
necessary. He particularly warns Christians not to wonder at the
world's hatred and desire for their death. Such was the hate of Cain
for his brother, of which the apostle has just spoken. The world's
hate, it must be admitted, repels love and powerfully obstructs its
exercise.
3. Is it not surpassing strange that one can hate those who love him
and from whom he has received only kindness? Such wickedness is
almost inconceivable, we say. What incentive is there for any to
render the world service when in ingratitude it rewards love with
hatred? But let us examine ourselves, who are baptized and have
received the Gospel, and confess how we requite the supreme love of
God in giving us his Son. What a beautiful example of glad gratitude
we display! For the shame of it we ought to despise ourselves before
God and his angels.
And what shall we say of those who will not endure the preaching of
the glorious message of God's grace and blessing, but condemn it as
heresy? to whom they who seek to serve, to benefit and save the world
by declaring the good news, must be, as Paul says, "as the filth of
the world, the offscouring of all things," 1 Cor 4, 13. Indeed, no
criminal receives more wretched and ignominious treatment and
execution, of which the Pope and his followers are a case in point.