This I command you: love one another

At 1,15-17.20-26; Ps 112; Jn 15,9-17
14 MAY

The Law of the Lord, written on the two tablets of Stone or the Ten Commandments, is the foundation on which the whole building of true love is built. Never might true love exist for one who stands outside these two tables of salvation. The Ten Commandments are the Law of love to the negative, of the non-doing. To it the Lord adds the other Law, that of doing, which must be given pure obedience as the first. The perfection of this Law of doing is contained in the two Commandments of charity: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. You will love your neighbour as yourself”. To non-doing we must always add the doing. You do not have to kill, but you do not have to let the other go hungry. It is not enough not to take away from the other what is his, we must also give to the needy what is ours. Today, a truth that is denied wants love to be very pure obedience to every law, every precept, every statute and every prescription of the Lord given to us by revelation.

Jesus comes. He completes the Law and the Prophets, reveals his pure Law of love according to justice or perfect obedience of the Sermon on the Mount. In this Law of Christ love consists of two truths: do not harm the other person even with thought, desire, speech, heart and mind. A non-holy word addressed to the neighbour is already absence of true love. Doing the other all the good that is in our possibilities without any distraction. No one must be harmed. Not even enemies and persecutors. Good must be done to all, even to enemies and persecutors. The disciple of Jesus is called to a divine vision of love. To the perfect imitation of the Father. But not imitation by imagination. Imitation through contemplation of the image of the true love that the Father has given to us. This image is Jesus the Lord. For this reason, the Christian must know all the secrets of the love of Jesus in the same way that Jesus knew all the secrets of the Father. As Jesus is eternally turned towards the Father, so the disciple must be perpetually towards Christ the Lord. As Jesus did what he saw the Father do, so the Christian must do what he sees the Son doing. If the contemplation of Jesus is omitted or made occasionally or made one day and a thousand no, it becomes impossible to love on the perfect model of Lord Jesus.

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 may 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.

But how did Jesus love his disciples? He loved them by calling them, showing them his most pure truth, revealing and giving them the Word of the Father in its most perfect sanctity, instructing them on the mystery of the kingdom, removing from their heart and mind all falsehoods and lies, guiding and accompanying them onto the path of superior justice, washing their feet, dying on the cross, becoming for them a true holocaust of redemption and salvation, breathing on them the Holy Spirit, nourishing them by making himself Eucharist for them, entrusting them with his very mission. He loved them by putting his life, in every moment, at the service of their salvation. Jesus asks the disciples to love one another, according to the model He left them. Love begins by placing oneself at the service of the salvation of the other. If a disciple is not true salvation for the other disciple, never might he be salvation for the world. This is the sad temptation that today is consuming the mind and heart of the Christian. Everyone is thinking that we must love outside the Church, while it is in her that love must be lived. Then, out as well.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, teach us to love according to the will of Lord Jesus.