As I Have Loved You

In the Gospel of this Fifth Sunday of Easter, the Lord says to us: “I give you a new commandment: Love one another, as I have loved you” (Jn.13:34). But easily it comes to our mind what Jesus himself said to the Pharisee: the most important commandment in the Law is “you shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all soul and with all your mind… and also you shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mt.22:37.39). So if this is in the Law, why did Jesus say that is a new commandment?

The new thing of this commandment is in its last part: “as I have loved you”. The Jews believed in an invisible and unreachable God. You had to love Him to gain His favour, because He is almighty and He will judge you. But Jesus has revealed the hidden face of God: a loving and merciful Father who loves us far much more than what we love ourselves. He loves us so much that He sacrificed His own son to give us the eternal life.

Now we do not believe in an ethereal God, we love God “with all your heart, with all soul and with all your mind” because He has loved and loves us each day very much. He loves us first with an unconditional love. The Lord has taken the initiative again, and He himself shows us how to be perfect, how to be happy indeed: Give your live for your neighbour, love them as yourself.

Let us search in our lives all the gifts and blessings that the Lord grants us each day, be aware of His huge love for us and may try to give Him back a bit of that love loving our neighbours, specially those most in need and the abandon, and also in thousands of small details in our common life. This is how all will know that we are his disciples. If all the Christians followed this way, I am pretty sure that our world would change and all human beings would recover their hope.