The Priest stands in silence for awhile, hands together, eyes closed, head bowed; he then looks up and says "The Gospel of the Lord", he bows down to kiss the Gospel while echoing throughout the Church, everyone says "Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ" and everyone sits down.
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By this love you have for one another, everyone will know you are my disciple.
Those words kept playing over and over again in my head. "Everyone will know you are my disciple". Looking back a few sentences, Jesus exclaims
"...love one another, just as I have loved you, you must also love one another."
By reading these lines itself, the challenge by Jesus poses by itself, and that comes in the form of one simple yet powerful word: love.
Love is a struggle, because, love is not merely a feeling of affection or care, on the contrary, love encompasses action, thoughts and moreover, sacrifice. It's a package of multiple feelings that are in place that is complemented together with the outward action.
Thousands if not millions of people have dwelt with the topic of love. In his latest exhortation itself by His Holiness Pope Francis, the word "love" appears almost 540 times. The emphasis of love from the Christian perspective is the core and primary value of our faith, because it was through love that we exist this very day.
The challenge of love is a difficult challenge, we cannot call ourselves a Christian, or a Jesus-loving-person if we lack love. Love not only for God, but for other people. The challenge comes when we have to constantly reflect and imitate the love we have for God by the actions, thoughts and feelings we have for others.
God is never physically present in our midst, save for the Eucharist, he can never intervene directly in our lives, most of the time; and that is where God through his love puts us in a community with others. By placing us in the midst of other people; this is where we can experience the love of God and at the same time share His love to others. The love of God comes from the people around us, whom loves us and care for us; our supporters and those who encourage us. Despite this, we sometimes find it very difficult to acknowledge the love these people have for us. The ones we call "loved-ones" tend to be part of the reflection of God's love for us. Though imperfect as they are, they play a part in God's love for us by giving to us what is necessary and provident.
The greater struggle is to have the same kind of love, towards the people whom we call our "enemies", if that's such a strong word, then to those people we aren't in favour of, despise, or sometimes out-right abhor. Yet, if we call ourselves a believer of Christ, we can make no room for this kind of negativity towards them. That's the struggle we face as humans. By saying this, I don't mean we have to treat them the same way we treat our "loved-ones", rather, we have to treat them the way that God would, and that's through forgiveness and mercy.
How can we?
It's difficult. To see the person who isn't inclined to follow the rules; or to see a person who goes all out in hurting others, how can we love them? We can't.
In a human way, we simply can't put aside our feelings and immediately give them the love we have in ourselves. The Christian challenge comes in when, we have to remind ourselves that they deserve what is due. This means, seeing as to why they do what they do. Furthermore, by seeing this, the heart of mercy has to come enter into us, by going the further step and journeying with them to provide the love of God that they deserve.
For other to know that one is a disciple comes from the way we treat others, from the littlest things to the major sacrifices we make. This not necessarily comes only by actions towards them, but also our thoughts and perspective of them, how we gossip and slander about them and also our prayers for them. It's easier putting on a show towards the people we dislike, the refugees or asylum-seekers in our country, those people considered "lower" than us in a social-standpoint and help them. But like said before, love isn't just the action, it encompasses everything that we feel, and believe.
As hard as it is,
"Love always has
an aspect of deep compassion that leads to accepting
the other person as part of this world,
even when he or she acts differently than I would
like." - Amoris Laetitia, 92.
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