The Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 9, 2021

John 15:9–17

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.”

It might seem odd that there should have to be a commandment to love.  Whether we are speaking of romantic love or the love of friends and family, virtually everyone sees love as a great good, and as very desirable. The fact that the Lord does issue his commandment tells us much about the state of human nature and how hard we must work, with the grace of God, to become perfect as he is perfect — that is, in our love.  Real love is hard for us because we are sinners and accustomed to seeking our own good, irrespective of the good of others.  For the sake of our consciences we might rationalize our selfishness by seeing it as beneficial for others, but to perform a loving act for another person is actually hard work.  There is always some element of self in it. We can only love as Jesus loves through his grace.  We have his example to inspire us, but only his grace can actually enable us to love and to act out of love in a way which is spiritually perfect and empty of self.  Love, empty of self, brings us the true happiness that God  sent his Son to die that we might have it.  It is for us to give, and to receive, for in the commandment to love, we should recognize that we need to receive the love of others, which is in itself an act of love towards them.  

As we gaze upon the Blessed Sacrament or upon a crucifix, we can see the sign of God’s utterly unselfish love for us, and in receiving it, return it.  And it is in the experience of God’s love, and by his grace, that we can love our fellow humans.