"Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is
incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to
him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it
his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This is why Christ the
Redeemer 'fully reveals man to himself.'" – Pope Saint John Paul II: born Karol Józef Wojtyła served as Pope from 1978 to 2005.
Gospel
Text: (JN 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.”
There are different types of love but there is
no confusion in the language of the New Testament. When Jesus speaks about love
it is always a special type of love, unselfish love, loving the other for the
other’s sake without anything in it for oneself.
Of course there are difficult situations where
it is very demanding to love our neighbor as ourselves and our neighbor may be
a family member, someone who lives near us, or who works with us. These are a
few little helpful hints to love our neighbor. Remember Jesus died for that
person; imagine that person beneath Jesus dying on the cross. Imagine that
person as an infant in the arms of Jesus.
We receive the grace of the sacraments to help
us love our neighbor as ourselves when a priest celebrates the sacraments for
us. We need priests to give us the sacraments. It is only with the grace of God
that we love our neighbor as ourselves in this new way. It is only by living
every day with Jesus that we can love our neighbor as ourselves.
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