Let's weak up the love

God morning, happy Monday, and blessings.
 
In today’s Gospel, John 14:21-26, Jesus makes something very clear when he says to us: the person who obey my commandments and keeps them, that person loves me. What then does it take to obey? This passage picks up where last week's reading left off. Jesus continues to deliver his farewell discourse (chapters. 14-17), preparing his disciples for his departure and their receipt of the Holy Spirit. In this brief but powerful passage, Jesus reiterates his favorite theme: love. He also promises the Holy Spirit. Finally, Jesus emphasizes the intimate unity of Jesus, God, the Spirit, and the believer. The passage begins and ends with love.
 
To read this, obey me, and you will love me, produces a mechanical, dry Christianity with no warmth or joy or glory. But what Jesus says is, if you love me, you will obey me. It is easy to do, not difficult. Notice that it is not, if you love me, you will have to keep my commandments. No, it is cause and effect: If you love me, the result is that you will keep my commandments. That is the secret of all proper behavior in the Christian experience. The proof of our love is obedience.
 
If it takes love to obey, what produces love? That is the issue. If you see a Christian disobeying Christ or you are tempted to disobey, what is it that will turn you around and make you obey? It is love. How do you produce love? What will make you love Him? This is what ties together verses 20 and 21. It is that basic secret of our identity that creates love--the Spirit in us, releasing to us the love of Jesus, awakens love from us in return.
 
Remember how John puts it in his first letter: We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). Remembering this awakens love. Or, as Paul puts it in Romans 5, God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us (Romans 5:5). Therefore, the way to produce love is to remember who you are, to whom you belong, and who He is--His death, His resurrection, and His unity with you, His present indwelling life. You cannot remind yourself of that without experiencing a renewed sense of His love and feeling gratitude to Him for who He is and what He has done in your life. When that love begins to flow, then you are being motivated to obey. Again, it takes love to obey.
 
If love is an act of the will—not motivated by need, not measuring worth, not requiring reciprocity—then there is no such category as “unlovable.” This is what Jesus teaches in the parable of the good Samaritan. When the lawyer seeks to qualify the meaning of the Great Commandment by asking, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29), Jesus responds with a story about a man who shows love to the “unlovable.” It is, of course, a story about himself—and a story about every one of us who has received rescue at his hands
 
When we begin to follow Christ, we resolve to love our neighbor even if it costs us. And it does cost us—it costs us our preferences, our time, our financial resources, our entitlement, our stereotypes. At times, it costs us our popularity, respect, and more. But in laying these aside, we learn the brokenness of the object of our love in a deeper way. We find increasing empathy, and as we mature, we resolve to love our neighbor no matter what it costs us. This is the kind of love that distinguishes believers from those who do not practice the salvific liberation of Jesus. Remember, love does not die, just sleep, or change places. We must look for it or wake it up.
 
Blessings
 
Padre Luis+