Love One Another

 

This very tight little bunch of daffodils has volunteered in a spot down by the lake for several years.  They grow very close to the ground, I guess to guard against the three mornings below freezing that we've just had.
John 13:31-35 is part of the long sort of sermon that Jesus gives his disciples at the Last Supper.  Jesus commands, "Love one another as I have loved you."  He adds that that is how people will know that we are his disciples.  I wonder how often that is evident in our lives.  In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, some people are finding it hard to love these two brothers.
A reporter mentioned that on the social networks some Catholics are praying for the younger brother  because he might have been strongly influenced by his older brother.  Some may have said that, but we really pray for people not on the chance that they might deserve our prayer.  We pray for them whether they deserve it or not.
If we obey Jesus' command, we love people, not because of who they are, but because of who we are.  Jesus says to love the way he does and that's the way he loves.  His love is unconditional, free, unearned.  In his life he loved everybody, even the unlovely and the unloved.  He didn't hesitate, wondering if they might respond.  He just loved them.
In this passage from John, Jesus says that he's not going to be around much longer.  It's up to us now to take up his job of  loving everybody.  We are not left to our own resources.  God is love.  In this Spirit of Love we live and move and have our being.  It is Love who lives around us and within us.  To love as Jesus loves we need only let Jesus within share with us his unearned way of loving.  That means we love those who do evil, even our enemies, as Jesus commands in another place.  It's not easy, but it works.