IT IS HARD TO LOVE LIKE CHRIST.
It is very hard to love like Christ, yet this is the command given to us: Love one another as I have loved you, not like yourself, as found in the Old Testament, Leviticus. 19:18. However, it is not impossible to love as he did because he has shown us “how” to love.
Love is God’s own very nature (1 John 4:8); hence, to pertain to God, we must live in love.
The Christian life is the fundamental guiding principle, philosophy, theology, or spirituality of loving God and others not like ourselves, but like Jesus did and commanded us to do.
“I give you a new commandment, love one another, as I have loved you,” John 13:34
This is not a suggestion or option by Jesus for us to do as we please. No. It is a command, a challenge, and a dying man’s last wish word. Neither is it a beautiful expression of sentiments, wordy feelings. Rather, it is a concrete lived experience in thought, word and action.
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY: IT IS HARD TO LOVE LIKE CHRIST.
Christian life and spirituality can be summarised in Christ’s dying wish to love one another as he (Christ) has loved us. It is the consciousness of God’s love and how this consciousness influences our daily actions, words and thoughts towards others.
The essence of Christian life and spirituality is to love. Love as the Foundation of Faith. Love as a Fruit of the Holy Spirit, that is, Christian love is not a human emotion, but a supernatural gift from God’s Spirit. Love in Practice is not just about avoiding harm, but actively showing kindness, compassion, and generosity towards others.
Love as a Witness to the World. Christians are called to be witnesses to the world through their love for one another. This love is Agape: A Unique Type of divine love of God, a love that is sacrificial, self-giving, and unconditional.
This type of love is not based on feelings or personal benefit, but on a deep commitment to the well-being of others. It’s a love that transcends human limitations and reflects the love of God within believers.
OUR THEME: IT IS HARD TO LOVE LIKE CHRIST.
The readings of this fifth Sunday of Easter are about renewal and new things. It is about a New Jerusalem, a new Heaven and a new earth, and a new commandment. Where there is renewal or newness, there is life, refreshness and living hope. Above all, there is creative love in action that liberates and energises.
Today’s readings present that the Christian life is not a dead ideology or tradition but a living and active spirituality of concrete love of God and others.
Today’s reflection implies that without God or Love, we are nothing and can do nothing. We struggle with untold difficulties in life, business, family, marriage, studies, work, and relationships. All because we do all these without God or love in Christ. Truly, we need the inspiring and lovely action of the Holy Spirit to love as Christ did.
FOR CHRIST LIVING IS IN LOVING OTHERS
For Christ to live is to love in action, not only mere expressions of love. Thus, he reminded us that, “No one has greater love [no one has shown stronger affection] than to lay down (give up) his own life for his friends”. John: 15: 13
We might ask, what is love or Christian love like? Here, too, St Paul gave a beautiful and everlasting definition of Christian love. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-
WE MAY ASK: HOW DID CHRIST LOVE?
- He loves us unconditionally without merit or reason.
- He loves us sacrificially suffering and dying on the cross.
- He loves us understandingly, knowing our weaknesses and failings
- He loves us forgivingly, excusing our sins and failures
- He loves us generously donating his Self, time, and talents to saving us.
- He loves us as equals, friends and not as servants or enslaved people.
FIRST READING: ACTS. 14:21-27
In the first reading, Paul and Barnabas demonstrated love in concrete action: the act of self-donation or giving to the cause of the Good News amidst hostility or persecution.
Today, we come to the realisation of the most consoling fact that through Christ´s love, we are more than conquerors in our pains, sufferings, and tribulations, like Paul, Barabbas and the early Christians. True Christian love overcomes and endures all things, including suffering and death.
That is the paschal mystery we celebrate, the love of God for us in Christ Jesus overcomes sins, evil and death.
THE THREE NOTABLE LIGHTS ON MY MIND OF PAUL.
First, Paul was honest with the people who had chosen to become Christians. He frankly told them that they would have to enter into the kingdom of God through many an affliction. He offered them no easy way. He affirmed the principle that Jesus had come “not to make life easy but to make men great.”
Second, on the return journey, Paul set apart elders in all the little groups of newly-made Christians. He showed them his conviction that Christianity must be lived in a fellowship.
As one of the great fathers put it, “No man can have God for his father unless he has the Church for his mother.” From the very beginning, it was Paul’s aim not only to make individual Christians but to build these individuals into a Christian fellowship.
Third, Paul and Barnabas never thought that it was the Christians’ strength which had achieved anything. They spoke of what God had done with them. They regarded themselves only as fellow labourers with God.
Here, we begin to have the right idea of Christian service when we work, not for our honour but from the conviction that we are tools in God’s hands.
SECOND READING: REVELATIONS. 21: 1-5
The second reading, from Revelation, explains how God renews His Church by being present in her members and their parish communities and liturgical celebrations.
The love of Christ renews, beautifies, consoles, overcomes pains and sufferings, gives life anew, and strengthens the abiding presence of God.
The end of love and love is one of the new things: newness of life, opportunity, relationship, beginning, and lasting peace and joy in the ‘New Jerusalem’. Rev. 21: 1-5
THE GOSPEL: JOHN 13:31-35
In Africa, particularly in the Idoma culture to which I belong, respecting or fulfilling the last words of a dying or departing person is the best honour you can do to immortalise that person.
The Gospel of today treats the farewell speech or request of Jesus to his disciples: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples”.
The question is: how did Jesus love us all? He did love us…
Extravagantly or lavishly, Jn. 3:16, willingly Jn. 3:16, sacrificially Jn. 15:13, forgivingly Jn. Gal. 2:20 or Rm. 5:8, demonstratively Jn. 13 31-35, understandingly Jn. 21: 15-20, and unconditionally 1Jn. 4: 10-11
In summary, today’s Gospel passage gives us the secret of Christian renewal as the faithful practice of Jesus’ new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:35).
IS SUCH LOVE POSSIBLE?
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have a love for one another.”
It is a very demanding ideal to love our neighbour as ourselves or even to love our neighbour in any way at all. In the face of hatred, resentment, and conflict in interpersonal relationships, Jesus’ commandment to love and his example of forgiving those who crucified him.
He calls us to reconsider things and seek reconciliation rather than vengeance. Fundamentally, we can love our neighbour deeply only by living in the spiritual life of contact with Jesus.
We can love as Jesus taught, only by being close to him. If not, we will rely on our human efforts alone, and we will love with some other type of love but not the unconditional love Jesus asked for when he said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you.”
CHRISTIAN VOCATION: LOVE
Fundamentally, our Christian vocation is to love. It is the only way to show we are followers or Disciples of Christ. Yet, how difficult it is to love truly, though not impossible with the grace of God.
LOVING ONE ANOTHER MEANS
- Truly, love is one difficult commandment of Christ, his dying wish for us all to fulfil.
- Love asks the best of us and brings out the best in us.
- Being loved gives us a surprising energy and courage.
- Love makes us fruitful, productive, strong and constant in doing good.
- Love is the flame that warms our soul, energises our spirit and supplies passion into our lives.
- It’s our connection to God and one another.’
- Practising love has the power to heal ourselves and others.
- To love is to heal, both those who receive and those who give it.
- To decide to love is to be fully open to life. It is choice and not just feeling.
- When we choose to love, care, heal, help, and forgive people, we grow towards what our life is meant to be.
Therefore, there’s no way Jesus could insist strongly: “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Above all, let us ask the Spirit of Love to help us love, not be too self-rationalistic or self-deceptive by loving intentions or wordy expressions, but concrete actions.
Let us pray today for the grace as Christ did. That is to appreciate God’s love for me and the courage to face the challenge to love others, as they are and as we ought to, but above all, as Christ has loved us.
OUR PRAYER
Lord, Jesus Christ, to love not by sentiments, thoughts or words but by concrete lived actions is not easy at all, especially in a world dominated by hypocrisy, the superficiality of social media, violence, hatred and revenge. Yet, it is possible through your exemplary life and grace. Teach us to imitate Christ day by day, to put into practice day in and day out this fundamental principle to love one another as Christ has loved us. Amen
