Gospel

John 15:9-17

Jesus said to his disciples:

“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.

Remain in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,

just as I have kept my Father’s commandments

and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you

and your joy might be complete.

This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.

No one has greater love than this,

to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

I no longer call you slaves,

because a slave does not know what his master is doing.

I have called you friends,

because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.

It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you

and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,

so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.

This I command you:  love one another.”

Reflection

It's not unusual for us to live in a world where we feel we have to perform for people in order to win their esteem or their respect, or even their love. And the same was true in the Old Testament, and the New Testament to the people were struggling to understand what is it that the message of Jesus is going to bring to us?

Its promise to bring joy, happiness, fullness. And it’s so interesting that it primarily works like this. If you allow God to love you as he longs to love you, you will be changed and you will be able to love those around you with a new energy and resonance. You have to be loved in order to love.

And that's why Jesus is so insistent in helping people to realize that the God who created them is the God who loves them, no matter who they are. He is their God, their father, their friend, their lover.

Closing Prayer

All of us struggle with self esteem. And we live in a culture that tells us that we should be a certain thing, or have a certain thing, or look a certain way, and that's all normal. But what we see in Jesus is a message that he knows heals the hearts of so many people that are feeling empty or not enough. He loves us as we are, knowing that, really realizing that, believing that with our whole heart and soul is what grace intends to accomplish. And what is grace? Unmerited love. That's what we need to feel flowing from God, our father. We ask this in Jesus’ name.

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