Gospel 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.”
Reflection:
Jesus said to his disciples:
“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”
Jesus loves us, and His fondest desire is for us to have a peace filled life.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you
as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let
them be afraid.” (John 14:27)
The key to peace is love. When we truly “feel” loved by someone, our hearts are not troubled and we are not afraid.
“No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Jesus laid down His life in complete confidence that He would be resurrected. In doing so, He proved to us that we no longer needed to fear death, for death has no power over love.
“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain…”
There is no greater honor than to be chosen by God. Jesus Christ chose you…and me, to spread the seeds of God’s love. Through our good deeds and words, we bear the fruit that feeds the people we meet with the knowledge that they are loved by God.
“……so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”
May we ask the Father, in Jesus’ name, for only one thing: that He give us unselfish hearts and sacrificial spirits so that our love for others will make Jesus known to all.

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Corinthians 13:4-7