God is love. We Christians are commanded to love. Our love is perfect when we take the Triune God as the centre of our relationships. God is only too pleased to make human love perfect like His is for us. The Father, through the Son, shows us what perfect love is like, and the Holy Spirit is given to us to help us love others. This is the message of today's first reading.

Since it is God who takes the initiative to love us, we can love God in return and love our neighbours. If, however, we don't have God as the centre of our relationships, these relationships not only become imperfect; their nature may change into fear, despair, manipulation and sins.

Let us, then, learn from Jesus how to love. The Gospel tells us that Jesus personally sent off the five thousand whom he had just fed. We can imagine him blessing them and wishing them a safe journey home. After giving himself to them, Jesus spent quality time with the Father by praying in the quiet and solitude of the mountains. Then he came to the disciples in the storms of their lives to encourage and console them.