‘Love one another as I have loved you’

A  wise spiritual guide once pondered that when we get to heaven, the Lord will not ask us, “What did you do for me,” but rather “how well did you receive my love?” Christ gives us a new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

When St. John says in his First Letter (4:10): “Love consists in this, not that we have loved God but that he has loved us,” he emphasizes something that is absolutely essential to us as Christians. Loving as Christ loves, first of all, means that we have come to experience the love that God has for us. If we have not truly accepted this love and interiorized it, then it is impossible to love another person as Christ has loved us. I think this is one of the most crucial aspects of our faith that has to be accepted as the foundation of our lives. We first have to recognize that God has loved us first, and He loves us personally. The love of God has to first be received in the depths of our hearts. Then, the love of Christ “impels us” to love one another (c.f. 2 Cor. 5:14).   

In contemporary parlance, the word “love” seems to have faded from splendor. 

We sometimes distinguish between “love” and “luv”, the first being something weighty and important, the latter primarily a feeling and relatively superficial. But love (Caritas/charity) is essentially willing the good of the other. When I was living in Italy, I was struck by the fact that a husband and wife would more commonly say to each other “Ti Voglio Bene” (literally: ‘I want/will the good for you’), as opposed to the more literal: “Ti Amo” (‘I love you!’). 

The Italian expression captures the essence of what love is: willing the good of the other. This is how God loves us: He wills the good for each of us. 
“That’s Amore!”

Now, if that is how God loves us and then commands us to love one another in the same way, what does that entail? In his Gospel, St. John opens the Last Supper discourses with an important phrase: “He loved his own who were in the world and he loved them to the end” (13:1). This love is demonstrated so powerfully in the washing of the feet and in the culmination of Christ’s love for us on the cross. Jesus not only shows us how to love but also gives us the power to accomplish it through his grace. Loving to the end is indeed loving as Christ loves us.

I remember reading a moving story about a Catholic college student who befriended a Muslim classmate. They become really good friends and shared with each other their beliefs and way of life. 

At one point his Muslim friend, convinced of the truth of Jesus Christ, expressed his desire to convert to Christianity but was afraid that his family would disown him. His Catholic friend didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, he was excited that his Muslim friend had come to believe in Christ, and on the other hand, he understood the complexity of his dilemma. He couldn’t just tell his Muslim friend: “well, Jesus said we may have to give up everything in order to follow him.” Easy for him to say; he wasn’t going to lose anything. He realized that he would have to accompany his Muslim friend into the Christian faith (more than just being a sponsor), and that would mean he would have to be willing to be this man’s new family, that he would have to journey with him ‘to the end.’ He was being called to love as Christ loves.   

In today’s world, we are often tempted to cut off communication with those with whom we disagree or who see things differently than we do. We are willing to offer advice or counsel – even to have the last word – but are we ready to love to the end? Like the Good Samaritan, are we open to being “inconvenienced” by another to help them on the journey and to “pay” for whatever expenses this may incur? God places people in our lives to give us an opportunity to offer the love of Christ Jesus. 

Jesus gives us a new commandment: “love one another as I have loved you.” 
Christ loved us “to the end,” giving his life so that we may live, and He journeys with us on the pilgrimage of life. 

He never gives up on us or leaves us behind. May we, in turn, love as He loved us, by loving one another to the end, despite our neighbor’s weaknesses and failures. For by this shall we be known: if we have loved with the love of Christ.
 

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About this writer:

Father Brady Williams is a member of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT).  He completed his theological studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome in 2003 and was ordained to the priesthood in Corpus Christi in 2004. In 2008 he completed his Licentiate degree in liturgical theology at the Pontifical Atheneum Sant’Anselmo in Rome and was appointed as the Rector of the SOLT House of Studies (2008 – 2012). 

Among the many opportunities for priestly ministry, Father Williams was assistant chaplain at the University of Dallas Rome Campus (2006 – 2011) and ministered to the sick and dying as a hospital chaplain at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI (2012).  He was assigned as Pastor of Most Holy Trinity Parish and School in Phoenix, AZ in 2012 – 2013.  Currently, Father Williams serves as the SOLT General Secretary and as the Novice Servant.

See column in Spanish here.