“That you may love one another”
Week by week the Easter season invites and takes us deeper and deeper into our relationship with God. The readings for this Sunday have been carefully chosen to pull us into the mystery of love — deeper into the mystery of God’s love.
One who loves unselfishly and whole-heartedly is a living sacrament of divine life, according to the First Letter of John. Jesus is for us the prime example of that kind of love. He is one who is willing to give everything up for the love of others, for the sake of others entirely. Everything that is good springs from that love which Jesus teaches, and practices, and which he tells us to imitate. “Love one another,” he tells us, “as I have loved you.”
In order to understand Jesus, we have to work to set our minds free of the narrow and sappy notions of love that popular culture sells. For example, love that is merely romance or erotic is restricted and limited by feelings that are self-involved and possessive. Which is why we are taught that the proper context for that love—beautiful and sweet as it is—is within the bonds of marriage and family life. Indeed, in that context the lover is drawn irrevocably into the kind of love that Jesus modeled: it becomes ultimately self-giving, not self-seeking. You may need look no further than the grandmas and granddads in your life to see what that kind of love looks like in real life.
This week, you might take some time to ponder the examples of selfless love that make God’s Love real for you. May God, we pray, draw each of us into living more fully the mystery of selfless love of others.
– Fr. Mark Hoelsken, SJ