My Dear People, 

Today Jesus speaks to us about love. That word, often misunderstood, is explained in a variety of ways. The Greeks had at least three words for “love” – “Phila”, “Eros”, and “Agape”. “Phila” is the reciprocal brotherly love we share with our friends and family. “Eros” is the love that involves emotions. Poems, sonnets and songs include this love. There is a third form of love. That is “Agape”. Agape is a love one embraces because one chooses to love. This is done outside of reason: Jesus chose to die for us. The love Jesus is speaking about in the gospel today  is a sacrificial love.

Jesus commanded us to love each other as He loved us. This is a tall order because Jesus loved us more than we love ourselves. He loved us to the point of suffering a shameful and painful death. He gave us the complete gift of self. 

“As the Father loves me, so also I love you.” So, the Father’s love for Jesus is the same as Jesus’ love for us; and Jesus’ love for us must be replicated in our love for each other. What is happening here is that the whole church is being called to enter into the circle of divine love which is the Trinity.

One way to understand the Trinity is as a circle of love, in which each person is giving himself to the others. The Father is always giving His whole Self to the Son; the Son is always giving His whole Self to the Father, and the self they exchange is the Spirit. Our Lord, in today’s Gospel, is calling every Christian to enter into that circle of love. 

How can we? How can finite persons endure the burning flames of divine love? How can we also enter into total gift of self? It is beyond our human capacity, yet that is the connection with the First Reading. We cannot love this way without being “divinized” through a “participation in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) through the reception of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts 10 makes it possible for us to live out the otherwise impossible command Jesus gives us in the Gospel. 

Again, we should be amazed at Jesus’ invitation for us to enter into divine life. As many have pointed out, this is remarkable among world religions. In Islam, the goal is to be a good slave of God—but Jesus calls us “friends.” In most eastern religions, the goal is to annihilate the illusion of your self-existence or otherwise merge yourself back into the impersonal universal Being, that is, All. But becoming the “friends” of the personal God by sharing the gift of this Self, His own Spirit, which is love? That is good news!

(Passages taken from Reflection on the Sunday readings by John Bergsma)

Yours in Christ, 

Father Vincent Clemente