In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Many a time does Christ in His Gospel tell us of the new
commandment which He has given us. What is new in this commandment of
love? It is the height and the purity of its standard. It is not new
that people love one another; peoples have always loved certain other
people. What is new in this commandment of Christ is that we are told to
be of one heart with our Heavenly Father, to participate in His love.
That is to love in the same way in which He does, - He Who does not
distinguish between the good and the bad, Who does not distinguish
between people who are grateful and those who are ungrateful, not to
mention those to whom one may be attracted or not. The love of God is
vast and deep and all-embracing; what varies in this love is some
internal quality: God may rejoice, and God may pay the cost of His love
upon the Cross.
And we are called to the same; we are called to love
without discrimination - people who are not of Gospel would say without
discernment, foolishly, madly - we are called to love as wholeheartedly
those who are right and those who are wrong. The difference will lie in
the fact that we may rejoice in the ones and be brokenhearted for the
others, but our love must not falter. We all know how to love a little
those whom we naturally love, and we ask ourselves how can we, from this
simple love of the few, grow to a wider love, and from loving those who
are lovable, begin to love those who are not. The first step which we
must take is to learn to love those whom we love spontaneously in a new
way: to love them always and not only at such moments when it is easy,
to love them without expecting anything except the joy of loving them,
and to receive any love in response to ours as a perfect, free, holy,
fragrant gift which is a miracle, but which is not a reward, not
something we have a right to, something which is freely and perfectly
given, something that fills our heart with amazement and with gratitude.
We must learn to love without waiting for a reward, simply rejoicing in
the miracle of love that will allow us to rejoice when there is
something about which we can rejoice and also brokenheartedly; to
rejoice again when those whom we love have lost everything except our
love, at least that is left to them, at least this we shall never take
away from them. And we must learn to love each other in the spirit of
the Gospel: not simply to do good to certain people, or to many, but to
think what is the true good for a person. O, I do not mean the cruel way
in which we continually define for others what we believe to be their
happiness and their good, and in which we force, or try to force people
into being happy the way we want them to be happy. No, I am thinking of
another kind of thoughtful search for their good: never support their
weakness by letting things go on, never close your eyes on what is
destructive for them, speak the truth in charity, love them so that they
should be built up and not destroyed. If we begin to love in a better
way those whom we love spontaneously and naturally, our heart will
become clearer, purer and wider, and we will learn to love people, one
more person perhaps, and then one more, and then another again, at a
greater cost, with a greater purity, with less selfishness, with a more
generous heart. Let us begin at this simple level, and God will lead us
into the kind of love He calls us to possess and to share, a love which
is life-giving, which is a light, which is a joy, which is faith, which
is a beginning of eternity here and now.
