Gospel Reflection
‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ You may think that Our Lord’s extravagant extreme of love in voluntarily undergoing death for us, is something no human being could ever measure up to.
But actually, something like this happens whenever a mother or father sits by the bedside of a child suffering the terrible pain of a chronic illness or traumatic accident and, perhaps, even facing the prospect of death. Such a parent will invariably say ‘I would rather suffer and die than see my child suffer and die.’ It is the same with a person seeing their much loved life partner in a similar situation.
Each of us, usually to a lesser degree and in less fraught circumstances, has the opportunity to absorb, to some extent, the sufferings of others. We are thus given the possibility of fulfilling the command: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’
‘Jesus loved us first’, Pope Francis reminded us. This is the key to the newness of Jesus’ commandment.
As Francis pointed out, it was already an established principle that you should love your neighbour. It is in the Torah in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, so well established as Jewish law and custom. What Jesus does is extend this, going beyond formal concern for our neighbour to a really deep love – ‘as I have loved you’.
Jesus’ love, “is God’s universal love, without any conditions or limits.” Pope Francis said.
Which is why it is important to start by knowing that Jesus already loves us, irrespective of who we are or what we have done. He loves us, Pope Francis explains, ‘despite our frailties, our limitations and our human weaknesses.’ In fact, as Francis adds, it was Jesus himself ‘who ensured we become worthy of his boundless and never-ending love.’ Through his death we are worthy of this kind of love. There is nothing we can do to make him love us more or less than he already does. God’s love, by definition, is boundless.
So, aided by the Holy Spirit, we are called to experience and express the love of Christ. As the late Pope said, if we are truly open to this, then ‘we can spread everywhere the seed of love that renews relationships between people and opens horizons of hope.’ In this year of Jubilee, when we are called to be Pilgrims of Hope, showing love to others, even those people we might find it hard to love, is how we show true Christian love – just like Jesus did.
