LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS GOD LOVES YOU.

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER. YEAR B.
May 21, 2006.
(First reading: Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48) (Psalm 98:1-4)
(Second reading: 1 John 4:7-10) (Gospel: John 15:9-17)

LOVE ONE ANOTHER
AS GOD LOVES YOU.

The commandment of love is a calling from God asking us to relate to others in the same way as God relates to us.

This is how God relates to us: He gives us his only Son. God's love for us is, therefore, a person: Jesus(1), who gives his life(2) "as expiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10), as an offering to rescue us from injustice, oppression, wars, aggression, dispossession, division, inequality.

Jesus is capable of loving all mankind because he has received that love from his Father: "As the Father loves me, so I also love you" (John 15:9).

Where does love come from?
Christian love does not originate in the individual human being, but rather it has its origin in someone else: God.

That is the case of Jesus himself who is able to love because he has received that love from his Father. Jesus is born into the world because he has received the fullness of his Father's love (which is a love for all human beings).

Since Jesus' love is for all human beings, it follows that any human being who fails to receive God's love, has not been born yet.

There is only one true love: The love that comes from God and is to be spread throughout all humanity.

Any person who claims to love outside God, is a liar because those who claim to create their own brand of "love" only use it as an instrument of exploitation and selfishness.

This is how we live the love we receive from God:
Anyone who does good deeds such as eradicating war, aggression, abuses, injustice, dispossession, is making his fellow human beings recipients of such good deeds, and, at the same time, is giving witness that such deeds are the manifestation of God's love. For "it is not we who chose God, but it is God who chose us and appointed us to go and bear fruit that will remain" (the fruit of peace, justice, unity, mutual respect, equality (John 15:16).

Just as Jesus makes us recipients of the love of God, so must we also bring his love to all human beings by making them recipients of our love. In other words, we put into practice the commandment of love only when we bring peace, compassion, respect, unity, justice and equality to all.

We will achieve true peace, justice and prosperity only when everybody participates in them. How could anybody claim to have achieved peace or justice or prosperity if other human beings live under war and oppression and poverty?

Those who promote dispossession, abuse, aggression, wars, injustice, that is, "those who are without love do not know God, for God is love" (1 John 4:8).

The move towards Christian love.
Let us present three stages in our efforts towards achieving Christian love:
1. We must begin by renouncing to all forms of harming one another (Our world does not even come close to meeting this minimum requisite, for it is evident that the powerful are intent on conquering and destroying the weak).
2. We must promote true equality, unity, respect, peace and justice for all, without exception.
3. We must be willing to freely give our "life as an offering" for the liberation of all human beings.

Love will be a reality in our world only when we love one another as God loves us.
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Footnotes.
(1) To say "I love" means that it is Jesus who loves through me. That is the only true way of loving.
(2) To say "Jesus loves through me" means that I am willing to give my life for my neighbor, just as Jesus did.
Therefore, love is not merely a commandment, but rather a necessity, the necessity of a human being to be like God.