A blessed Easter to all.

Today the liturgy of the Word calls us to listen to another paragraph of Jesus’ testamentthat we started reading last Sunday. We are still in the Upper Room. It is the moment of Jesus bidding farewell to his disciples. We know how difficult it is to separate ourselves from the people whom we love. This separation must be well metabolized, otherwise it can leave deep wounds in us for the rest of our life.

And Jesus wants to prepare his disciples to continue their lives without his physical presence. Jesus has entrusted these disciples with an immense task, that of changing the world. They know that they are a small group and also wounded by the defection of one of them who has already moved away and left the Upper Room. Now, they must go out to announce the beauty of the face of God that they have contemplated in Jesus of Nazareth: aGod who is all good and who loves all his sons and daughters unconditionally. And asks them to love as he has loved, therefore, even the enemy.

It is, therefore, a great task that Jesus has entrusted to them. The disciples feel weak and fragile. Jesus is about to leave them. What are the disciples asking themselves? Certainly, the question they ask is, How can we fulfill this immense mission that has been entrusted to us?It was towards the end of the first century that John wrote these sacred words that Jesus has spoken during the Last Supper. These are the words that encouraged the Eleven who were very disoriented until the Pentecost arrived.

And these are the words that have also sustained the first Christian community during the early years of their life when they had to face trials and persecutions. John wrote this testament of Jesus for the Christians in his community in Asia Minor. It is a time of trials and defections as mentioned in the book of Revelation. Let’s remember how the Seer of the Apocalypse presents himself and this immediately gives us the context in which the Christian communities are living. It is a time when they are marginalized, expelled from the synagogues, and are seen as objects of injustice and repression.

This is the beginning of the presentation of what the Seer does: “I, John, your brother, with whom I share the evidence… I was on the island of Patmos because of the Word of God and witnessing to Jesus” (Rev 1:9). He claims that it is a time when everyone is suffering. How to live this moment? It is precisely in this context that the evangelist John wants to present the Christians of his community those words of the Master that have given them courage and comfort at the time of Easter– – A time when they had to pass the test of the death of their Master. But these words were also written for us.

Let us reflect. One of the tests that every true believer experiences today is the perception of being left alone by the people who live next to him, because he thinks and behaves according to different criteria and values ​​of his own. What happens… If he talks about forgiveness, meekness, chastity, renunciation, sacrifice … what happens? He is seen as a somewhat strange, obsolete person, with valid convictions for times gone by. Sometimes they even laugh at him. The Christian knows that this will inevitably happen because the logic of the world is incompatible with that of the Gospel.

Jesus will say this a little later in his will when he says to them: “Take note that if they have hated me, they will also hate you… And when this happens remember that I have already told you.” In these situations it is important to let our hearts be penetrated, like balm, with the words of the Master that have comforted and encouraged the disciples of the first communities. Let’s listen: If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you.” “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” In our languages ​​we only have one verb to say ‘love’.

The Greeks had at least four verbs. One is ‘agapán’ which is used here. We are told that there are up to 80 terms in Sanskrit to describe the many nuances of love. But we only have the verb ‘love’. Among the Greek verbs, the one used here is ‘agapán’. What is the characteristic of this way of loving? It is love despite everything. The love of those who do not think of themselves, do not think of the benefits of what you might expect from the action you do; the love that thinks only of making the needy person happy. He puts himself, with all his abilities, to donate life. And, if it were an enemy, it would be one more reason to make him happy and forget himself. It is impossible to go any further beyond this horizon of love.

This verb is used as a characteristic of the life of the disciple of Christ. For a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, ‘living’ means loving. He who loves in a way that stagnates; does not live as a human person. Being ‘human’ means loving. This term ‘agape’, and ‘agapán’ the verb, is used 259 times in the New Testament. And in the testament of Jesus, presented in these five chapters of the Gospel of John, the term ‘love,’ appears 26 times.

This tells us about the importance that Jesus gives to this message that he wants to remain in the hearts of his disciples because it is the center of life of a Christian’s life. What is this verb ‘love’ about? It is not an emotion of the heart… the one experienced by lovers… NO.That is ‘eros’ which is a very good thing, an impulse that God has placed. ‘Agapán’ is not looking for the other for one’s own benefit, instead looking for the way to find out how I can help the brother, the sister who needs my help to live.

Here Jesus asks for love for him, for himself. It is a constant repetition because Jesus wants this ‘agapán’ — it appears four times in his testament. He says: “If you love me you will keep my commandments … he who observes my commandments, he is the one who loves me, will observe my word… the one who does not love me does not observe my words”. It is the first time that Jesus speaks this way. What does it mean to love him? It is not a selfish request… which would be ‘eros’ – wanting the other to be for him only… NO.

Here it means: to follow him, to follow his life proposal. It means uniting your own life with his. As with the wife who does not want other lovers because her heart is united only to her husband, with whom she shares all of life’s projects. This is the love that Jesus asks: “share your life with mine.” And today Jesus invites us to evaluate to what extent we are involved with his life, in his project. How much of our life are we are ready to offer him? He says: I commit my whole life to ‘agape’. I make a gift of my life. How much are you willing to risk for my proposal?

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Let’s try to explain this expressionbecause on the lips of a lover this word does not sound good… it bothers us a little to speak of ‘commandments.’ We don’t like people talking about ‘order’, about ‘provisions’… A lover does not speak that way. Here we are in a context of love, and not in the context of work with the salaried employee.

What does Jesus imply by his ‘commandments?’ Let’s keep it in mind, Jesus has never spoken of the need to obey him. He never said, “You have to obey me.” And he also never said that “God must be obeyed.” When in the Gospel, the Greek verb ‘hüpakuein’ is used, it always refers to orders that Jesus gives, not to people or to the disciples… He sends the order to obey to the unclean spirits to obey, to the wind, to the rough waves of the sea… and these must obey him and, in fact, they do obey him. It is the forces of evil that must obey; never people. Furthermore, the Greek term for ‘obedience’ = ‘hüpakuein’ is not found in the Gospels.

People are not called to obey God, but “to be like the Father in heaven.” To live in harmony with the life that the Father has given them. And the Father’s life is the ‘agapán’; the totally dedicated life that thinks only about making the other happy. So, it’s not about obedience to orders but to maintain the disposition of the heart to listen to this divine life, to the Spirit, who tells you at each moment how you can manifest your love. Obedience happensin a climate of subjection and this is incompatible with love. It is the similarity to Jesus that makes us grow.

The likeness to the Father is perfect in Jesus. He always obeyed his identity as the Son of God and this is the kind of obedience that is required of us. Not to external mandates but to our life as sons and daughters of God. We could paraphrase Jesus’ response to his commandin this way: ‘If you love me, look at my life and behave like me.’ Therefore, we have only one commandment from Jesus: it is the voice of the Spirit, it is our identity as son or daughter of God. In fact, Jesus had just said: “I give you a new commandment”… a single commandment. ‘That you love each other as I have loved you… love each other and everyone will know that you are my disciples.’

Why does Jesus speak of ‘commandments’ – in the plural? Jesus has only one commandment and he has always obeyed it, that of divine life, that of love. But now he talks about commandments – plural. The reason is that the only commandment is manifested in multiple situations. Thus, love must be realized in every action and must be discerned here and now what the only commandment calls us to do. Thus, for example, at a certain point he asks me to help a sick person; and perhaps he is a sick person who has previously offended me, hurt me, and here the only commandment is manifested and I must listen to the voice that comes to me for being a son or daughter of God. Another time this commandment will ask me to receive one who is in need and this person needs immediate help. Or maybe to give up my right because the other person has a greater need than me. At another time, it will ask me not to raise my hand to be served.

This unique commandment manifests itself in different ways in different contexts. And this is what Jesus calls “my commandments.” And it is what Paul says in the hymn to love – in Greek: “Χρηστεύεται ἡ ἀγάπη” – (Christévetai i agápi). It is translated as “love is patient” … NO. The authentic meaning is that love knows how to adapt to any situation; discern moment by moment what one must do in each situation because we know how to recognize what the Spirit asks us to do. Thus, the only commandment is to be attentive to all the requests of love of the brother or sister. And it is in this context of love that Jesus speaks of another Paraclete.

The word ‘paraclete’ (parakaleo) means called to be close. In Latin: ad-vocatus = lawyer. What is the role of the lawyer? Defend the one who is attacked… from the one who wants to put us in jail, even if we are innocent. When one is attacked, the lawyer appears to protect us and defend us. And Jesus speaks of another Paraclete because he is the first Paraclete, the one that was next to his disciples. And now there is another Paraclete that will continue to fulfill the same mission of Jesus. What is the protective mission of the Paraclete, the one who is callto defend? He is not coming from the Father in heaven to condemn our sins. NO.

The adversary is the one who wants to take my life, the one who does not want me to live as a true person. And who is this enemy? The evil. The mentality of this world. All that strength that wants to carry you to think only of yourself, to be disinterested in others.Therefore, it is the opposite of the love that Jesus proposes. “And this Paraclete will be with you forever.” He will be a faithful companion.

Let’s try to explain a little more who this Paraclete is who is always with us, and always by our side, protecting us at all time against the forces that want to take our life. Here is an experience that all of us can do: To forgive someone who has done me great harm… I could make this person pay, but the only thing I will achieve is the satisfaction of seeing him suffer; and therefore, I refuse to do it.

But one who is guided by worldliness, by the logic of this world, can even accuse me of being weak, of one who is unable to make others pay. But the son of God who is within me, the Spirit that has been given to me tells me: ‘Congratulations – you are a true child of God.’ I give up climbing in my professional career because if I didn’t, I would get into trouble with my conscience… even if friends call me naive, too sincere, but the end of the day, when I’m alone I feel a voice inside me saying: ‘Congratulations – you behaved like a real man.’

This voice is the voice of the Spirit that is always with us and protects us from the enemy that is the evil mentality that would not lead us to love but to withdraw into ourselves. Maybe you will feel out of a circle of friends, you will feel out of those who think otherwise, you will even feel alone, abandoned by the worldliness that ridicules you. Therefore this Paraclete defends you. ‘The Spirit of truth.’ What does ‘spirit of truth’ mean? Not that he doesn’t tell lies. It is the Spirit that leads you to be a true person.

If you don’t love, you are not a real person. And now the words of comfort that Jesus addresses to his disciples who, at certain moments, they will inevitably feel lonely and lost in the midst of those who prefer to follow the proposals of the world. Let’s listen to these words from the Master: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”

“I will not leave you orphans,” says Jesus. “I will come to you.” The translation means: ‘I come to you’. If I lose a friend, I am left alone… and now I do not have a ‘friend’, he is just a memory… there is something of mine that was lost; if a wife loses her husband she is no longer a ‘wife’, she is a ‘widow’; if a son loses his father, he is no longer a son, he is an orphan. When Jesus leaves this world his disciples fear becoming orphans; ‘If the Master is missing… we will no longer be disciples… we will lose our identity.’ But Jesus says: ” I will not leave you orphans.” This will not happen. ‘I will be with you in another way. Something unheard of will happen, you will experience an immensely truer presence than the one you experienced when I was with you physically for three years.’ I will come again. “The world will see me no more.” The world as worldliness, which only sees the material, verifiable.

For the world Jesus will be a failure, he ended up in the grave, finished forever. ‘Instead, you will continue to see me because I live and you will live.’ We have just said that ‘living’ means loving; the rest is to vegetate; it’s normal but if I do not reach a life of love, I am not fully a human being. ‘You will live because you will be involved in my very life, that life that unites me with the Father and this very life will be communicated to you with the gift of the Spirit. Therefore, my presence will not be an external friendship, like the one you have experienced so far, but it will be a life of perfect and full communion. And you will not only be united to me, but you will be united and involved in the life of the Father in heaven.’

When we keep in mind this message that Jesus has left us, this testament, then our whole life in this world changes perspective. We see what our destiny is; not only how it will end, but also what is happening in us now. We are involved with Christ in the life of God. This is true life; the rest is a lie.

I wish everyone a happy Easter and a good week.