By Fr. Simione Volavola, MSC (St. John the Baptist Parish-Ottosville, PA)
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. (John 13:34)
The gospel takes us back to the Last Supper. We see here something utterly new. God’s glory is being revealed in the loving of Judas and the first disciples who will betray, disown, and abandon Him.
This way of loving is new because the Divine Lover, by His incarnation, has fully taken on the flesh and blood of every human being and submitted Himself completely to all the sins and guilt that have infected our human nature.
Beginning that night at the Last Supper and till His Second Coming, our Lord Jesus Christ embraces and weds Himself to us who, by our constant tendency to sin, know not how to love as He loves.
Our sins are many, our guilt unbearable, our brokenness irreparable but by His love for us on Good Friday, we are forgiven, justified and healed.
Easter proclaims that His love for us is never overcome, but conquers the evil in us and pours into our hearts the Holy Spirit by whom He has loved us since the moment Judas left the upper room.
By submitting ourselves daily to the Risen Lord who has completely united Himself to us in our flesh, blood, soul and humanity, we too can love one another as He has loved us. No betrayer is left unloved.
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