Daily Reflection Memorial of Saint John Neumann, Bishop

We have been following the First Letter of John, certainly one of the greatest (if not the greatest) epistles of the New Testament. In today’s passage from 1Jn 3:11-21, the author comes to the central theme of this epistle that will culminate in the next chapter, that God is love. There, the author also tells us that it is not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us. In 1Jn 3:11 this central truth is stated as plainly as possible. “This is the message you have heard from the beginning: we should love one another.” It flows precisely from Jn 13:34-35, at the beginning of the Last Supper, when on the night before he died Jesus told his disciples: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

It can never be emphasized enough how this love of Christ Jesus for us is meant to transform us into people who are thus empowered by that love through Christ to love one another. It is an understanding that flows throughout the Gospels and all the New Testament. Without this love for one another that comes from Jesus’ love for us, everything else, no matter what it is or how wonderful it may seem, is of no use, no value (1Cor 13:1-3). Jesus told us in Mt 5:46, “If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that?” Also, 1Jn 4:20 tells us, "Whoever does not love a one whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen."

The love that Jesus is talking about is not a love that is common in this world. It seeks nothing except to love. It does not desire to change the beloved in any way. It asks for nothing in return and even if it is given scorn and utter rejection it continues to love. It does not care what the beloved does or does not do. It has no aims to “fix” or in any way change the beloved. It accepts them entirely as they are because that is the only way to truly love someone. It loves everyone the same. Love like this rejects any desires to make the beloved somehow “better” or more complete. It has no goals other than to love. It forgives everything. It never enters into battle or argument or any kind of will to power with the beloved. Love like this is within an eternal peace that never takes offence, that accepts everything, that loves without any reward whatsoever.

Obviously, love like this is not of this world. It comes only from above, from beyond if you prefer. It is a great, yes, the greatest mystery. Only a more and more complete trust in God, a more complete faith that God alone will make all things well (but never in any sense that we can ever know or even imagine) can put us in contact with it. It is God’s great gift to us if we but had the courage and faith to accept it. Pray for it always. Ultimately it means that we will suffer without complaint, without question, without regret. God pours this love out upon the whole human race if we only had the eyes to see. Every day there are countless opportunities to love like this, if only our poor, fearful selves did not get in the way! But as Jesus also told his disciples at the Last Supper, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” and, “Have courage, take heart! For I have overcome the world!” That is simply to say that Jesus can enable us poor sinners to overcome our very selves, to free us from fear to love one another as he loved us. That is what we are finally asked to believe. That is what would transform us as well as the entire world. It is never too late.