June 1, 2007

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Jn 15:12

The love of Christ is our standard and our model for all of our relationships and interactions with other people. In other words, we are to imitate Christ in our life and love others as He has. What are some qualities of His love?

His love is forgiving, merciful, gentle, correcting when necessary, patient, sacrificial, life giving, hopeful, humble, uplifting, encouraging and demanding.

The next obvious question that we must ask ourselves is do we love one another as Christ has loved us?

Often times we can compromise the radical call to love that Jesus gives us by making excuses such as, “This person doesn’t deserve my love because they have hurt me,” or “This person annoys me so much because they don’t do things the way I would do them or they think much differently than I do, making it impossible for me to love them.”

In the end these excuses are simply that—excuses. They are attempts to justify our selfishness and our own stubbornness of heart. Even though we may fool others, God is not fooled. He doesn’t care if somebody annoys you, if somebody thinks differently than you do or does something differently than you do. He calls us to love—no excuses!

Imagine all the excuses Jesus could find not to love us! Let us be thankful those “excuses” did not get in His way to prevent Him from loving us and let us pray for the grace to remove any “excuses” we may have that prevent us from loving others as Jesus has commanded.

Br. Jeremiah Myriam Shryock CFR

St. Joseph Friary, New York, NY

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