Today’s readings invite us to focus on one profound and essential theme: Love as the Heart of Christian Life. In the Gospel, Jesus commands us: "Love one another as I love you" (John 15:12). He emphasizes that love is not merely a feeling or sentiment, but the ultimate expression of our faith and discipleship where we intentionally extend and will the good of the other. Jesus even goes further to say, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13). Here, love is rooted in sacrifice — a love that is willing to give everything for others, just as Jesus did for us.
The first reading from Acts compliments this theme by illustrating how the early Church navigated difficult questions about what it means to live out this love in community. The decision to include Gentile Christians without imposing unnecessary burdens, yet still maintaining respect for the Jewish traditions, shows a commitment to love that is both universal and sensitive. The leaders, guided by the Holy Spirit, recognize that love involves understanding, respect, and discernment — not rigid rules, and neither a mistaken idea of intimacy outside of marriage as it is established by God, but a compassionate response to real human needs always desiring the good of the other in respect of their true dignity as children of God.
What does this mean for us today? It means that love must be the guiding principle in all we do, but it must be the kind of love that is blessed and desired by God. Saint Augustine is one saint among many who distinguishes between different kinds of love, asserting that caritas (charitable love) is the highest form because it is selfless and seeks the good of the other for the sake of the other, reflecting God's love for humanity. It is not self-serving love. It is not a love rooted in pride, but in humility. Saint Pope John Paul II, in his teachings on the Theology of the Body, described love as a mutual self-gift that reflects the divine love of the Trinity, urging believers to love authentically and wholeheartedly.
This invites us to imitate Jesus’s love — a love that sacrifices, a love that reaches out beyond boundaries, a love that seeks the good of others before our own comfort, a love that came down from heaven and emptied itself in the form of a slave. Love is the foundation upon which the Church is built, and it is the measure of our faithfulness.
So, as followers of Christ, our task is clear: to love one another as He loves us.
Where, might we suppose that Jesus, in his human nature, learned to love on this way, if not from his earthly parents? Our Blessed Mother’s love is most profoundly immortalized in the image of a sword that pierces her heart which gave to the world that which she held most dear – her only begotten Son. Saint Joseph’s pure and selfless love, in the lily that blossomed from his staff. In his divine nature, our Lord dwelt and knew the love between him and the Eternal Father through the divine nature of the Holy Spirit. God, in fact, is Himself love, because He is a plurality of Persons always extending their gaze to the other.
Let us then learn from all this, that “greater love than this no man has, that he should lay down his life for another.” May he give us the wisdom and the strength to be generous in our sacrificial love for others.
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