By Msgr. Joseph Prior • Posted May 16, 2025

(See the readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter)

“To love another person is to see the face of God” is a line from the musical finale of the show “Les Misérables.” The dead Fantine sings these words to the dying Jean Valjean. He had lived a sacrificial life and suffered the pain of living in a broken, imperfect and fractured society. First he is jailed as a consequence of stealing a loaf of bread for his starving family.

Then he raises the daughter of Fantine whose lover had abandoned her and her child. Losing her job due to a corrupt foreman who had designs on her, she was led reluctantly to a life of prostitution so that she could pay for the care of her only daughter. On her death Valjean promised to take the child and raise her as his own.

His past conviction, hidden as best he could, followed him through life. Propelled by the loving mercy shown him by the Bishop of Digne early in the story, he loved and gave himself completely in that love to help others, most clearly and symbolically represented in his love for his daughter Cosette. So much so that toward the end, he puts himself in the line of gunfire, saving her beloved fiancé from death. So in the last moments of Valjean’s life, the dead Fantine appears in brilliant light, singing:

Come with me / Where chains will never bind you / All your grief / At last, at last, behind you. Lord in Heaven / Look down on him in mercy.

Valjean interjects:

Forgive me all my trespasses / And take me to your glory.

Fantine continues:

Take my hand / And lead me to salvation / Take my love / For love is everlasting / And remember the truth that once was spoken / To love another person is to see the face of God.

The final lines summarize the life of the main character and some would say the central theme of the book. The story is a good illustration of a foundational teaching of Christ and his Church – love.

Jesus speaks in the Gospel about love. Love, of course, is not an exclusive Christian reality. Cultures and religions before and besides Christianity speak of the value and experience of love. The Christian understanding of love, however, is different. The foundation of that understanding lies in God himself. St. John will write those famous words in his first letter, “God is love.” Love is of God and is who God is.

In the Gospel account for this Sunday’s liturgy, Jesus specifies that love so that we are clear what he means when he speaks of “love.” He says: “I give you a new commandment: love one another.” The newness lies in what follows: “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”

The way that Jesus loves is by emptying himself completely. We see this throughout the public ministry as he leaves home to invite people to faith; as he ministers to the desperate, the confused, the oppressed, the lost, the sick, the dying, the dead, the mourning, the broken and everyone whom he encounters.

Finally, his total gift of himself is seen in the passion and cross. He gives everything of himself. This is the way of love, divine love.

The second reading contains that beautiful image from the Book of Revelation of the heavenly Jerusalem. The passage speaks of the new Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a place, a city with which we are all familiar; it still exists today. When we think of Jerusalem today and the conflicts and divisions that exist within her boundaries, we might see it representing human society, not just in that place but around the world: Peoples broken by division, conflict, want, need and ideology. The new Jerusalem will be different than this. The hallmark of this city is love.

The love is first described in marital terms: “as a bride adorned for her husband.” The bond between spouses is a bond of love. When spouses put the other first, giving of themselves for the other, the marriage glows in the light of love and becomes a visible witness to Love himself. Here the relationship between God and humanity is seen in terms of this bond of love.

The book’s author then gets specific. “God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God.” God enters the human experience in love through Christ Jesus. In this sense the image does not only speak of a future reality where the relationship reaches its completion, but also a present reality in that God dwells with his people through Christ, alive and risen from the dead.

His presence among us, his Church, is seen when the members of his Body live in the life of love; putting others first, sacrificing for the good of another person. In this way we live in the Kingdom while waiting for its fulfillment when “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.”

God loves us and calls us to love. Serving others, putting their needs before our own, giving of ourselves without counting the cost, sacrificing our wants and desires for the good of another are the ways in which we do this.

The places where we do this are many. In our families, our parishes, our communities, our schools, our workplaces, our playgrounds and hospitals, our hospices and shelters, on the streets and in food pantries. Many charitable organizations today are looking for volunteers. So many worthwhile endeavors are seeking help to serve others in the community; not in far-off places but right in our own communities. While many respond, the need is still great.

Perhaps today we might hear those words of Jesus, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another,” and respond in this context, for “to love another person, is to see the face of God.”

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Msgr. Joseph Prior is pastor of Our Lady of Grace Parish, Penndel, and a former professor of Sacred Scripture and rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.