April 29, 2005

Love Jn 15:12-17

Jesus said to his disciples: "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."

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.
The total gift of self is a complete love. There is nothing more that we have to give. It is a putting aside of all other worldly things and self needs and acting in love alone. Jesus has called us to love others and to come to God with all our needs, to above all love. It is a beautiful and simple command and a central way of Christian life. Without love we are nothing, totally lost.