Today I’m reflecting on this from St John’s gospel:
“Remain in my love… I have told you this so that so that my own joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. “
It touches on the deepest desires of our hearts, to know ourselves loved. We can easily finish the concept of love. We can use it lightly to talk about favourite foods or activities. Or we can sentimentalise it, focussing only on the positive feelings that feeling loved arouses. Those feelings are important and essential for all of us, but the love Jesus offers is something much deeper than that.
His love offers us the deep assurance we seek, promising to accept us as we are, with all our faults and failings. Yet, Jesus offers an invitation and challenge beyond that. This love is willing to put itself aside. Jesus illustrates that in his total self giving, putting himself aside for love of us.
He invites us into this love, calling us to live as he does. He challenges us to live in a way that calls us to put ourselves aside for the Good of others. It’s a call St Benedict echoes, telling the community to choose what is better for others rather than ourselves.
It’s a call we can live in both big and small ways. It can mean anything from supporting someone through a crisis to greeting a passer by with a smile when we don’t feel like it. It is in practising this self giving love where we can that we will discover the joy Jesus promises.
Where are you called to abide in the love of Christ today?