love one another

LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVE YOU 

Good evening/morning everyone, welcome to celebrate today’s Holy Mass. Our special welcome to all our parishioners, visitors and everyone here. 

Once during the homily time, a man was sound asleep. The priest said to the man who was sitting next to him, “would you please wake him up?’ The man said, “why put him to sleep and you wake him up”. 

There is a story about God’s other children in which we would see how the people of Israel would cross the red see after being enslaved for four hundred years and the Egyptians who would follow them would all perish in the sea. After this, as the people of Israel were singing and dancing, in heaven, the angels were also singing and dancing, celebrating freedom and victory but God would be missing, so the angels would ask angel Michael about it. You know what Michael would say, “God is not here because he is weeping for many thousands of his other children who were drowned today”. 

In today’s gospel, Christ our Lord is giving us a new commandment. Yes, He is giving us a new love commandment.  

Once a scholar asked Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, body and soul”. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it; you shall love your neighbor as yourself” 

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is an old commandment and the new commandment that Christ gives us today is, “Love one another as I have loved you”. 

St. John the beloved disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ kept repeating only three words in his last years. He would say, “Love one another”.  He was repeating the new commandment of Christ our Lord. 

Once a passerby criticized Mother Teresa who was attending a dying man with horrible sickness saying, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars”. Mother Teresa looked at him and said, “Neither would I”. And I never liked her that much because wherever she went, she took up a good collection. She did it everything for love. Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you”. And that’s why we have the crucified Christ in the Catholic Church namely to know how much He loved us, and we should do the same. 

Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you”. Which means put your love into action. Anyone who says, “Lord...Lord...will not enter into heaven but only those who put their faith into practice”. What is the point of saying to someone that you love them when you do not prove that love in action. Love should be a practical one if not it should not be told. 

Today we have so many inter religious dialogues and ecumenical gatherings everywhere talking about uniting all different religious people together for a common good. Though theologically we are all different, there is a common ground among us all and that’s called love. Love is a uniting force and when there is love, war and enmity can easily be erased. A loving heart will never long for heaven because God himself will come to them and reside in them. So, let us love one another as Christ has loved us.