Memorial Mass: Bro. Kevin John Reilly, CFC

Memorial Mass
Bro. Kevin John Reilly, CFC

Jan. 4, 2022
1 John 4: 7-11
John 6: 37-40
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, New Rochelle

(Catholic News Service)

“In this is love:  not that we have loved God, but that he loved us…” (1 John 4: 11).

A great deal of the 1st Letter of St. John is a moral exhortation for Christians to love one another.  John teaches that behind the love we practice is our experience of being loved.

In love the initiative is God’s.  He has loved us 1st, in evidence of which he gave us his only Son to demonstrate the forgiveness of our sins, to empower us with divine grace so that we’ll be able to love—to love God in response, and to love the rest of God’s children, also in response.

John’s Gospel also speaks of God’s initiative:  “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me….  This is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day” (John 6:37,39).

Medieval philosophers taught, “Bonum est diffusivum sui,” goodness diffuses itself, naturally shares itself.  It’s so with God, the ultimate in goodness, God who is love by his very nature, and it becomes so with God’s children when we’ve been given his love.  We can’t contain it if we are truly God’s children.  “Everyone who loves is begotten by God” (4:7).

When we’ve truly entered our religious vocation, this is our experience.  If, perhaps, we came to religious life originally thinking what great things we could do for God, for Edmund Rice, for Don Bosco, we should have quickly been disabused of that idea.  God called us—Kevin John Reilly and all of us—because he loved us and wanted to share his life with us intimately, and then sent us to share his love with others, particularly with the young.

We pray that God’s grace bring our brother Kevin John to the everlasting happiness of his kingdom; that grace continue to fill our hearts and empower us to practice love for our brothers, our staff, our families, our past pupils, everyone.