Christ the Cornerstone

Want to draw closer to Christ? Love unselfishly

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, if you have love for one another (Jn 13:34-35).

The Gospel reading for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35) provides us with the plain truth: If we want to be followers of Jesus Christ, we must love one another.

Love is not optional; it is essential to our calling as missionary disciples who live and proclaim the Gospel. The fact that we love each other is the one sure sign that we are who we say we are as people who are united with Christ and with each other.

“I give you a new commandment: love one another” (Jn 31:34), Jesus tells his disciples (and all of us). But the kind of love that Jesus demands of his followers is not the “love” we see every day in the world. It is not romantic love, or parental love, or even friendship. The love that we are commanded to share with one another is a sacrificial love. It is a love that cares more for the good of others than for our own interests or our feelings about ourselves or other people.

A love that is selfless is what makes it possible for followers of Jesus to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecute them. We are challenged to love those we disagree with and to pray for those who would hurt us.

We are commanded to think less of our own needs and desires, and to think more of the needs and wishes of others—those closest to us, those who are merely acquaintances, strangers and even our enemies. “Love one another,” Jesus tells us, without qualification or distinction, “as I have loved you” (Jn 31:34). Jesus loves us unselfishly and unconditionally, without exception, and he demands that we follow his example.

The commandment to love unselfishly embraces all the other commandments. It requires that we love God above all else, and that we love others—everyone—as we love ourselves. This love makes it possible for us to live good, holy lives in accordance with God’s plan for us.

It allows us to observe all the commandments, to live the Beatitudes, and to follow in the footsteps of Jesus who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. When we love one another as Jesus loves us, we cast off the heavy burdens of selfishness and sin. And we embrace the freedom and happiness of God’s children both here and now and in the joy of heaven.

This kind of love is simple and uncomplicated, but it is not easy. Everything in us resists the command to set aside our own interests.

One of the most powerful effects of Original Sin, our first parents’ choice to place their own interests ahead of God’s plan, is our “natural” tendency to think first of ourselves. We justify our selfishness with a thousand excuses, but in the end, we forget our Lord’s example, and we fail to love one another as Jesus loves us.

This is why prayer and frequent reception of the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist are so important. We need the help of God’s grace to love one another sacrificially. We need help to restrain our self-interest and to place God’s will (the good of others) first and foremost.

The second reading for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Rev 21:1-5a) continues the great Revelation shared with us by St. John the Evangelist. This is a vision of the world to come, but the death and resurrection of Jesus have opened a doorway between our time on Earth and the heavenly kingdom envisioned here. As the evangelist reveals:

Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away. (Rv 21:3-4)

If we love one another as Jesus loves us, living together as disciples and missionaries of the Lord who loves us unconditionally, we will help build God’s kingdom here and now. What’s more, we will prepare ourselves to enter into the heavenly realm, the new and everlasting Jerusalem where God dwells with his people and where suffering and death are no more.

As we continue our celebration of Easter, let’s ask our Risen Lord to give us the grace we need to love one another as he loves us. †