Love

Listening to the Spirit

Breathe into me, Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy.
Move in me, Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy.
Attract my heart, Holy Spirit, that I may love only what is holy.
Strengthen me, Holy Spirit, that I may defend all that is holy.
Protect me, Holy Spirit, that I may always be holy. Amen.
(Saint Augustine)

Listening to the Word

John 15: 9-15

Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”

Reflection

Everyone can mention at least one song about love, or one book, and many other expressions of love. His/her own experience or another. Love. So many things were said in different ways about it, from songs to books, poetry to monuments, wars, and crimes; in history, all these for many times were attributed to love. Surely not only the one talking about it is Jesus. He is telling us something new. It will always be new when love is at work. Jesus is not showing us His love only. He is giving us one commandment.

One may ask himself: How can the Lord command us to love? Is it possible to see it as a commandment? Yes, it is possible. We must consider that He is not talking about feelings. If it was the case, it is unthinkable to love. It is known that we cannot choose our feelings. As they come, they go away. It changes constantly.

Jesus is trying to tell us that love is a decision, an action, a commitment to act for the benefit of others no matter how we feel about the individual. Precisely what He did. The way He acted and lived. For this reason, He can address these words to us today: “This is my commandment: love one another as I loved you.”

At the beginning of this same chapter 15 of John, Jesus presented Himself as the vine and we the branches. The stressing point on that occasion was our union with Him... “Remain in me.” Now He gives a further step for the disciples to do. Not only to love and remain in Him but to love others, our fellows. One can say until here nothing is new. The newness comes in the words: as I loved you. This is the love as a decision. Not from us but from Him, the one who loved us first. It was His free decision to love us. He transformed it into His mission: coming, preaching, carrying, giving His life on the cross for all. Drive only by love.

He asked not to love Him as an answer to His love, but to love others as He loved us. In Him and His mission, we can see that not only does love affect communion with God, it also transforms the one who loves. “Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.” (Fr. Arrupe)