Love One Another

Homily for Friday Of the Fifth Week in the Easter

“Love one another as I have loved you.” It seems a bit simpler to live out the other commandments. I can check them off without even thinking about it. This commandment, to love one another as Jesus loved us, is harder.

What can I do? How can I love the person who is making my life difficult? How can I find time to help someone else when I am already so busy? How can people ask more of me? Think about when Jesus was tired and hungry and overwhelmed. He still responded to the spiritual and human needs of those around him. I can love my neighbors and friends and co-workers and family and strangers in so many ways. I can lay down my life – pausing in my busyness – to be there for others. I can be present when a friend wants to talk and I have a long to-do list. I can find time to reach out to the exhausted mom. I can do my part, even if small, to work for peace and social justice. I can spend time in prayer for those who need it. I can forgive those whom I think have harmed me.

The commandment to love one another calls for concrete action. It must go beyond the boundaries of thoughts or attitudes. When Jesus gives this commandment, he aligns it with a concrete action which he himself will undertake; namely, to lay down his life for his friends. Small acts during our day that make this commandment an observable behavior is what Jesus is calling for in this passage.

We must also note that the last statement in today’s Gospel passage binds together the three different themes that have run throughout chapter fifteen - we have been chosen by Jesus to find joy in acts of love (chosen for joy through love). For those who accept this responsibility and these gifts, Jesus promises that anything they ask will be given to them by the Father.