Gospel JN 15:9-17
Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you
and your joy might be complete.
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:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you……”
We too are disciples, followers of Jesus.
Jesus is not only speaking to those who followed Him two thousand years ago; He also loves you and me just as the Father loves Him.
Can we identify and accept being loved in exactly the same way as we love our own children? This is how Jesus and the Father love us.
He does not love us only because of our goodness. He loves us in spite of our failings and weaknesses.
Through Jesus, our Father is calling us; not to be perfect but to recognize and accept His great love of us exactly as we are.
Jesus knows we are burdened with the weight of our sins and disobedience. Without judgement, He lovingly beckons us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you
and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”
When you love, you give for the sake of making the other person happy because you truly want the best for them. You have no intention or desire to receive anything in return.
“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain….
This I command you: love one another.”
It is by speaking the healing word, performing the selfless act, loving without looking for reward, that we “bear fruit that will remain.”
“Jesus’s message is that we are all to love one another; we are not to presume to choose which of God’s children are unworthy of his love. Only God knows the hearts of man. . . . By judging others, we display the shortcomings in ourselves.” The Awakening Heart