Love One Another AS I Have Loved You
Jesus commands us this weekend to “Love one another as I have loved you.” If we look closely at the readings of the church over the past week, it becomes abundantly clear how much of a lover our heavenly father is. It also becomes clear that He who is the Greatest Love calls us, calls you and me to love just as he loves. The beauty of the whole situation is that he not only tells us to “do it” he shows us how to do it. And again when we don’t get it right he shows us over and over again. More like a teacher, helping a child to write, he will even hold our hand with the pencil so that we form perfect letters and words. That’s the nature of our loving God.
Our Lord Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John chapter 15 Verse 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” Later in verse 12 he tells us “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus assures us that the same way his father loved him is the same way he loves us. He then asks us to abide in his love. He promises us that if we abide in him our joy will be complete. That sure sounds good, like something to aspire for. Complete Joy.
How can we abide in the love of Jesus? We start by obeying his commandments. When we obey God’s commandments everything else fall into perfect place. It is then that we experience his peace which leads to this complete joy. Here we bear in mind that the peace which Jesus promised us is a peace which last. It is a peace which the world does not give, a peace which the world cannot give. This is the same peace which Jesus experienced while he walked the earth. We should note that this peace which Jesus possessed was rooted in his love for the Father and in doing his Father’s will. So we see that true peace starts and end with loving God and doing his will. True peace comes as a result of living a life of holiness. This is seen perfectly manifested in Jesus Christ. It is the Holy Spirit who will guide us into living a holy life. We therefore must rely on God’s Holy Spirit to attain this holiness which leads to perfect peace.
Another way in which we can experience peace is through mission. This mission is to fully live out God’s plan and purpose for our lives. Like Jesus we are on mission to bring God’s love to the rest of the world.
As I think about the love of God and more so his command to “love one another as I have loved you”, and recall some of the people whom I clearly saw living the peace love and joy of God I remember my beloved friend and sister in Christ, Cynthia dearly departed. Although there was a large gap in the difference between our years, that did not prevent us from being close friends. There was so much to learn from her. She was such a joyful soul. She constantly sang the praises of God. Not to mention the warm smile her face bore almost always. This indeed was a special woman, one who had her fair share of sorrows, yet was always joyful and unmoved. At least that’s how she appeared. Cynthia was the mother of nine children, eight boys and a girl. I should mention that one of the boys is a Priest.
Most of us would at some point or another experience the pains of burying a loved one. We go through the motion of hurting and healing. My sister Cynthia had the “grace” as she would call it to bury three of her eight sons. Not to mention that one was murdered on the door step of the very church which she attended day and night like Anna. What made her such an inspiration to me was how she handled it all. No doubt it was God’s grace through the precious Eucharist which she received daily that provided the strength which carried her through it all. I remember an account of her reaction when she got the news that her son was murdered. She was just returning home from abroad and got the news at the airport. She praised and thanked God upon hearing this bitter news about the death of a child whom she bore. When the persons who went to pick her up saw her reaction, they thought maybe she did not hear clearly or understood what they told her, so they sought to clarify. Then she praised and thanked God even more. Not only did she praise and thank God, she asked God to forgive those who killed her son. This is not what we would consider normal behavior by the world standards. Yet it is the love, peace and joy of the risen Lord that could allow and permit such kind of “abnormal” reaction to situations like those.
A few months before she died, she related a story to me and to others of an experience she had while in the hospital. She told me when she came home from the hospital that she had a vision in which she was taken to a most beautiful place, while she lay on the hospital bed. That place she said had beauty beyond her imagination. Never before had she seen such splendor and glory. All she could recall in her awe was how she sang and praised God there. She also said the nurses at the hospital told her of how she entertained them with her singing all unknown to her that this was happening in reality. As she related the vision to me, I jokingly said to her, “Oh you heard that mansions are up there, so that’s why you want to go there before your time”. To this she smiled as her silver hair glowed.
Along our life’s journey we should ask ourselves, do people experience Christ in us? Do we display his Love Peace and Joy in the daily situations of our lives? We all have challenges, some major. How do we handle these? Do we appear at peace amidst it all? We are only able to live this way when our lives are fully surrendered to God and consumed by his love, and live constantly in his commandment, “love one another as I have loved you”.
May we trust and cooperate with our ever loving God, to supply the graces necessary to abide in him, to love as he loved and to obey his commandments and in so doing to obtain the complete joy he promised us. Amen.
