Sunday May 9, 2021 - Sixth Sunday in Paschal Time - If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, says the Lord; my Father will love him, and we will come to him - Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 15, 9-17
The evangelist John wants to describe for us the life that characterizes a disciple of Jesus in the time from Easter to the return of Jesus Christ at the end of time. Note that during these times Jesus is present in a different way: he is no longer visible.
During this time, Jesus invites us to keep the commandment of love, that is, he wants us to learn to truly love our neighbor. This is the object of our love for the neighbor. Love of neighbor is genuine when it tends towards eternity, that is to say, to truly love one's neighbor is to love him forever. But who's next? It is the one who is close to me, the one who is next to me. This means that this commandment of love is to be practiced first on people who are around us, but those who are far away. Either way, love for distant people is diminishing day by day, as the expression "Out of sight, out of heart" tells us. This affirmation invites us to improve our way of loving in a sincere way those who are next to us (parents, children, the elderly, neighbors). These people need genuine love, special attention. Sometimes, the means of communication keep us away from the people around us: the cell phone, the FB ...
How to love them sincerely? Jesus Christ answers that keeping the commandment of love becomes possible if "we abide in his love." "To abide in his love" means to welcome, imitate and extend the communion which unites God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. To love our neighbor we need a model of love, the one that Jesus Himself manifested to us when he said: "As I have loved you, love one another". The way in which Jesus loved us is the total gift of his person to the point of death. We are talking here about the second criterion of genuine reciprocal love: to love is to be generous; to love is to have the courage to lose by giving; to love is to be generous. We would be tempted to say that it is impossible! Let us not be afraid, because Jesus gives us his grace if we ask for it and his resurrection shows us that everything is possible with God, but we just need to believe in Him as Saint Mary did.
