What the World Needs Now…
(c)Mary TV 2015 What the world needs now is love, sweet love… J.M.J. November 8, 2017 Dear Family of Mary! There was a song back in 1966 sung by Dionne Warwick called “What The World Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love”. I was a teenager then, and that song spoke to my heart. It was like an ache that we all felt, and ache in our hearts for peace and for good will among men. For love. The beginning verse goes like this: What the world needs now is love sweet love, It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of, What the world needs now is love sweet love, No, not just for some but for everyone… The song was in the form of a prayer telling God we need love. Goodness knows, we don’t need to tell the Lord that we need love! He is the origin of Love and is Love and wishes He could give Himself to all of us. Still, the truth was there. We need love. We are dying for love. And the song writer was pointing to the right source! In the first reading for Mass today, St. Paul tells us something about the world’s need for love: Brothers and sisters: Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet, and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, namely, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law. (Rom 13: 8-10) Love does fulfill the law. It is always the right response, always the right desire for another. St. Paul in his own way was telling us that love is what the world needs!! Our Lady in the most recent message told us very much the same thing, i.e. that what the world needs now is love: “…My Son is love. He loves all people without difference, all people of all countries and of all nations. If you, my children, would live the love of my Son, His kingdom would already be on earth. Therefore, apostles of my love, pray, pray that my Son and His love may be all the closer to you; that you may be an example of love and may help all those who have not come to know my Son. Never forget that my Son, one and triune, loves you…” (November 2, 2017) Of course, Our Lady gives us the best direction about how to bring love to the world. She tells us to “pray, pray that my Son and His love may be all the closer to you, that you may be an example of love and may help all those who have not come to know my Son.” It is only when we pray and stay close to Jesus that we will be able to love. We are so fallen that even our best efforts at love will fail without Jesus. He must love in and through us. What the world needs now is Jesus’ love, given to us to share with others. That is what the world needs now, so desperately. That is what the world aches for… What the world needs now is love sweet love, It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of, What the world needs now is love sweet love, No, not just for some but for everyone… In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2017