Prayer of the Day

Fifth Week of Easter

The beginning and end of today’s Gospel is the command to love one another as Jesus has loved us.   Jesus showed his love for each one of us by dying on a cross.  So this is a hard act to follow.  To love everyone in this way means a dying to self.    It means renouncing our selfishness relentlessly.  Remembering that Jesus said: “Unless the wheat grain falls on the ground and dies it remains only a single grain, but if it dies it yields a rich harvest. … Anyone who finds his/her life will lose it; and “those who loses their life for my sake will find it.”   At our baptism each one of us was chosen by God to give an example of this kind of sacrificial love, so that others may be drawn to God. This is the purpose of our Christian life.  St. John of the Cross said: “In the evening of life we will be examined  only on love.”  But we are not left alone.  God is helping us along the way.  Our part is to get to know the Lord by lovingly meditating on the Gospels.