Jesus said to his disciples:
“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.”

Jesus asks that we love one another. What’s the love he calls us to have? Love can be of two kinds. We can love someone for what they do for us, what they give us, what we gain from them. That’s called “love of concupiscence.”

Another kind of love is a love that gives to another rather than receives. That’s called a “love of benevolence.” A love that gives.

Jesus loves us, not because we are slaves who can serve him and do something for him,  but as friends whom he freely shares with. He loves to the extent that he lays down his life for us. His love is a love that gives life.

His love is life–going. It makes us able to give life, as his Father gives life. The love he describes is the love found in the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.The human family is meant to be joined in a trinitarian love.

“Love one another.”