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 would happen if you follow this love
commandment of Jesus?
There would be no more hatred and separation amongst
married couples 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 you give love you have
to love yourself first. For how would you know how to give love if you have not
experienced loving yourself 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 and inflicted at you by your beloved. For
at the end of the day if we love the way Jesus loves us what would remain 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 fulfill 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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