John 15:12-17
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
This I command you, to love one another.
What do the Fathers say?
St THEOPHYLACT. Having said, If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, He shows what commandments they have to keep: This is My commandment, That you love one another.
Pope St GREGORY the Great. But when all our Lord’s sacred discourses are full of His commandments, why does He give this special commandment respecting love? Love and love only is the fulfilment of every thing that is required.
As all the branches of a tree proceed from one root, so all the virtues are produced from one love: nor has the branch, i. e. the good work, any life, unless it abides in the root of love.
The highest, the only proof of love, is to love our adversary; as did the Truth Himself.
Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Our Lord came to die for His enemies, but He says that He is going to lay down His life for His friends, to show us that by loving, we are able to gain over our enemies, so that they who persecute us are by anticipation our friends.
But whoso in time of tranquillity will not give up his time to God, how in persecution will he give up his soul? Let the virtue of love then, that it may be victorious in tribulation, be nourished in tranquillity by deeds of mercy.
St AUGUSTINE. This love is distinguished from men’s love for each other, by adding, As I have loved you.
They who love one another for the sake of having God within them, they truly love one another.
Having said, This is My commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, it follows, as John says in his Epistle, that as Christ laid down His life for us, so we should lay down our lives for the brethren. (1 John 3) This the martyrs have done with ardent love. And therefore in commemorating them at Christ’s table, we do not pray for them, as we do for others, but we rather pray that we may follow their steps. For they have shown the same love for their brother, that has been shown them at the Lord’s table.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
Artwork ex Wikimedia Commons