by Fr. Tommy Lane
In our Gospel today Jesus says,
I give you a new commandment:
Love one another;
just as I have loved you,
you also must love one another. (John 13:34)
How much has Jesus loved us? In 1 John 3:16 we read,
“This is the proof of love
That he laid down his life for us.”
(The sufferings of the crucified man on the Shroud of Turin show how much Jesus loves us.)
In the Gospel Jesus asks us to love others as he loves us. Since we have so many depictions of love in what we see on TV and read and listen to in popular music it would be good to understand exactly what is the love Jesus speaks of.
There are four words for love in Greek.
στέργω (stergo), love of parents for
children
φιλία (philia), love for friends, we
would say friendship
ε̉ρως (eros), selfish love, erotic
love
α̉γάπη (agape), unselfish love, wanting
what is best for the other.
It is always this fourth word, α̉γάπη, that the evangelists use to describe the love of Jesus and it is this word that he uses to ask us to love others as he loved us. How do you love others with this α̉γάπη love? Jesus has given us many pieces of advice for loving others with this α̉γάπη love. “Always treat others as you would like them to treat you.” (Matt 7:12) “Love your enemies.” (Matt 5:44) We are not called to like our enemies but to love them. We are to forgive not seven times but seventy-seven times (Matt 18:22). Someone has said that forgiveness is the highest form of love.
It is easy to love those who are good to us but what about loving those who have hurt us? The more serious the hurt the more difficult it is to love them. Therefore we need to heal these hurts so that we can love others. One book that is very helpful for this process of healing hurts is Healing Life’s Hurts by Dennis Linn and Matthew Linn. They have written many books on this topic. The charismatic section in bookstores should have books of this type.
Jesus said we will be known as his disciples by the love we have for one another. We can make heaven on earth by loving as Jesus loved and we get a description of heaven in our second reading today. Today we thank God for the gift of his love for us, we thank Jesus for his love for us which sacrificed himself for us as we see in the sufferings of the crucified man in the Shroud of Turin. Through prayer, and the healing of hurts through prayer, let us continue to draw strength from God to love others with α̉γάπη love as Jesus loved us.
I give you a new commandment:
Love one another;
just as I have loved you,
you also must love one another. (John 13:34)
This homily was delivered when I was engaged in parish ministry in Ireland before joining the faculty of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, Emmitsburg, Maryland.
More material for the Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
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