The scriptural readings of this Sunday speak with emphasis about love and the truth that those who believe in Christ are to obey His commandment of love. Jesus says “Love others as I have loved you”. In the first reading, St. Peter teaches us that God shows no partiality in His love. God loves everyone, both Jews and Gentiles, and He wants all to be saved through His Son, Jesus. The decision to yoke the Jews and the Gentiles was a tough one for the early Church. Thus, the story of the baptism of Cornelius is a response to the difficulty the early Christians had about admitting the Gentiles into the Church. Peter is in Jaffa and the Lord invites him to go to Caesarea and enter the house of Cornelius without fear of contamination because all are pure in the eyes of the Lord. The descent of the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his family even before baptism is a pointer to the irresistible freedom and universality of the love of God. God shows Peter that there are no pure or impure people; anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to Him.

In the second reading, the apostle of love, John, defines God as love. God is Love is the greatest single statement about God in the whole Bible. St. John explains that God expressed His love for mankind by sending His Son to die for all as expiation for sins. This divine love gives us the command as well as a duty to love our brothers and sisters as we have been loved by God. Love has its origin in God (I John 4:7); to be like Him, we must also love. Love comes from God and leads back to God. It is by love that God is known, and the best demonstration of God comes, not from argument, but from a life of love. God’s love is demonstrated in Jesus Christ (I Jn. 4:9). It is a love without reservation; a love that is totally undeserved because God loves poor and disobedient creatures like us. God created us out of love, gave us freewill out of love, and follows His creating act by His constant care. Out of love, God continues to save His creation and provides remedy for our sin. The love of God too explains the life beyond; the chances and changes do not have the last answer as He, out of love, continues to readjust the balance of this life. We, His children, should be like Him and love as He does. The thread of love continues in the Gospel where the word “love” is used eleven times.

Today’s Gospel passage narrates the after-dinner table-talk of Jesus with His disciples. In this heart-to-heart discourse, Jesus reminds the apostles (and us too) that the ultimate expression of Christian love lies in self-sacrifice for others. This pericope speaks about the love of God for Jesus, the love of Jesus for His disciples and the love of the disciples for Jesus. Though this love is steadfast and sure, it is also a love that may be lost. Thus, Jesus urges His disciples to “abide” or “remain” in His love. The condition for receiving and keeping this unconditional love is to keep the commandments: if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Therefore, the disciples must receive, and respond to Jesus’ love by keeping His commandment if they are to be able to continue receiving Jesus’ love. Jesus urges the disciples to choose obedience and to experience His abiding love so as to experience total joy as He does, thanks to His total obedience to His Father. His joy comes from a relationship of perfect obedience to the Father and the unity that the Father and the Son share. This joy can be extended and complete when Jesus’ disciples enter into the obedient, loving relationship between the Father and the Son by their own loving obedience.

Jesus also calls us to be His friends and the friends of the Father. He has given us this intimacy with God so that He is no longer a distant stranger but our close friend. He speaks further about discipleship by divine selection. This divine friendship is unmerited. Discipleship comes about by divine choice, not by human merits and actions. The outcome of this choice is the disciples’ ability now to go out and bear fruit, bear abiding fruit. The love, the friendship that comes from Christ is concretely manifested in the disciples’ lives. As friends of Jesus, the disciples have access to virtually unlimited powers. They only need to invoke His name and God will respond. Invoking Jesus’ name makes manifest the very presence of Jesus Himself. Therefore, as his disciples, we have to cultivate an abiding and loving relationship with Jesus. In that lies our effectiveness.