Gospel: John
15:12-17
Jesus
said to his disciples: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You
are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because
a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because
I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who
chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will
remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I
command you: love one another.”
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Reflection:
What if
we follow this commandment of Jesus about love?
There
would be no more hatred and separation amongst married couples but only love. But
the sad reality is we choose to turn a deaf ear to this love commandment of
Jesus. For the simple reason that we love ourselves more than we love Jesus and
our fellowmen.
There’s a
saying that before we could give love we must love ourself first. For how could
we know how to give love if we have not experienced loving ourselves first?
However this statement does not jibe on how Jesus interprets love or on how
Jesus gives the truest meaning of love.
For Jesus
to love is not to love oneself first, to love is to lay down ones life for the
beloved, for Jesus to love is to forgive the many hurts that has been hurled at
you by your beloved. For at the end of the day if we love the way Jesus loves
us what would remain in us is love no hatred but only love.
But how
do we love? We love selectively and we love with measure, we calibrate the love
that we give by the love that we receive. And we oftentimes do not love our
fellowmen when they do not fulfil our selfish expectation for them.
Let us
love without condition and let us love without expecting love in return. -
Marino J. Dasmarinas
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