WE MUST LEARN TO LOVE IN JESUS’ WAY

V EASTER SUNDAY - John 15:1-8

Love! A wonderful word that warms the heart as if driven by magic. It is a word repeated time and again in all colours and tones, a word sung in most songs and celebrated in most forms of art. It is as if we are inebriated with love and have become addicted to it. And the question arises in our minds: What is love? How do we recognise it? Is it just a nice and warm feeling? Is it the satisfaction that I find in others? Or is it the inner strength to give myself to the one I love?

Due to the complexity of love, the Greeks used four words to express different types of love: 

1. Philos, from Philia (φιλία): indicates a virtuous and dispassionate love." "It is described as the love between friends and siblings" 
2. Érōs, of Eros (ερως): it is, above all, the sexual passion. "It would be love among lovers." 
3. Storgé, from Storge (στοργή): "It is used to indicate natural affection as that which parents feel for their offspring." 
4. Agapē, from agápi (αγάπη): means unconditional love, as the love of God for man and the love that God places in the heart of man.

According to Paul in his love hymn (1 Cor. 13), there is nothing superior to love (agape), since faith and hope will disappear, but love will be eternal. In his first letter, John tells us that God is love and that “love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 Jn 4: 7)

The sincerity and truth of love - of any kind of love - are proven by this love (agape), in which we learn from God to love with our whole heart and with our whole being. Love cannot be confused with a blind but fleeting passion that seeks to find in the other the satisfaction of my desires, exceeding in the search for pleasure. Unless love goes hand in hand with commitment, making me rejoice at the happiness of the other as I help him/her to achieve it to the full and to be exceeded, I am full of selfishness disguised as love. Jesus tells us that "no one has more love than one who lays down his life for his friends" (Jn 15,13).

This Sunday’s second reading speaks of love as well and we are told to love “not in word or speech, but in truth and action” (1 Jn 3:18). True love manifests itself in commitment and service. Indeed, love gives the strength to work and to suffer for the ones I love. It is in difficult times, when we go through trials, that we discover the true friends, those who love us, in spite of our weaknesses and our failures. Words of everlasting love may be delusional and they can easily be a trap into which we may fall. Jesus proposed his love as the example and the measure of our love: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34).

In this Sunday’s gospel, we are invited to be united to Jesus as the branches are to the vine. Jesus is the vine and we must be in him, so that we may produce fruits. “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me” (Jn 15:4). This is only possible with a deep relationship of love, as Jesus explains: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love” (Jn 15:9).

Let us pray to the Lord that he may fill us with his Spirit, the Spirit of Love. May we experience that love and learn it from Jesus, becoming one with him. If we practice love in Jesus’ way, then we will find joy and happiness: “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (Jn 15:11)