In his Farewell Message Jesus says: “Love each another with your heart!”
Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako
Our world is going through an extremely difficult situation: divisions, conflicts, wars, and fears, along with the distortion of truth on social media and through artificial intelligence under pseudonyms. Yet Jesus affirms that love is a real value that affects life and strengthens relationships and peace. When people truly love one another and trust each other, many things change.
These words of Jesus came in the context of the Last Supper.They are like His final testament to His disciples and to all of us: love is the foundation of Christianity because “God is love” and the Church must be love, and her mission is love. Christians are called to become a sign of love in the heart of a torn world. Love is built on true friendship, not on interests or beautiful slogans. The spirituality of love fills the heart with comfort and peace.
“I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another… May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you; may they also be in us, so that the world may believe” (John 13:34–35; 17:21).
When we read this passage, we are struck by its intensity. These verses convey a double message: looking toward God, who is love, and looking toward loving people. God is at the centre, to bring peace and justice in the world. Christians are encouraged to be “prophets of love and servants of reconciliation” in difficult times.
From his divine love, Christian learns how to love his neighbour with purity of heart and to accept them as they are in the fullness of their being—even when they make mistakes—without belittlement, revenge, or spite. Love is not the love of a “theoretical human being” as presented by the philosopher Nietzsche, nor of humanity in general; rather, is love expressed toward a specific person of flesh and blood whom we know, before it extends to a wider space.
At the Last Supper—where He instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist, the sacrament of love—Jesus emphasizes that to live well means to love and do good for others, and not to do so is evil.
He offers two teachings: the first concerns love—the “new commandment” on which the mystery of the Holy Trinity is founded. The second concerns unity: that we should be united, not divided. John brings these two teachings together in one context, so that each reflects the other, forming a teaching that inspires sincere love and unity modelled on God’s love and the unity of the Trinity, which is beyond all boundaries.
A homily provoked me
A few months after my priest ordination, I attended a homily by a priest older than me, in which he said: “We must love all people!” When the Mass ended, I asked him in surprise: “Father, how can we love all people? Who are these people? How do we love those we do not know?” He was surprised by my question, and I continued: “Father, only God can love all people, because He knows them. As for us, we must love those we know—those we live with at home, in the parish church, at work, in neighbourhood, or those we meet.” He did not respond—perhaps because he was not convinced, even though he was a pious priest.
In the evenings during Lent, according to the Chaldean rite, we pray: “May love not cease among us until the end of the world.”
I believe that those who love will die, yet remain alive, while the wicked are dead even though they are alive.
“The wicked spring up like grass, and all evildoers flourish, only to be destroyed forever” (Psalm 92:7). “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar of Lebanon” (Psalm 92:12).
