THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

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A good Easter to all. 

The word love is frequently used in our conversations and is the focus of poems, novels, songs, and more. But what does love truly mean? What does the phrase ‘I love you’ mean? People who are in love often hesitate to say it aloud because they know it carries great weight; in fact, they usually wait a long time before making this declaration. 

Generally, when we consider love in the sentimental realm, we tend to associate it with attractiveness that evokes all that is beautiful in us: nice, cheerful people fascinate us, and we fall for them. We also fall in love with art, music, and science—basically, everything beautiful—because wherever beauty exists, we are drawn to it and want to possess it. 

This love was called ‘eros’ by the Greeks; it is a beautiful compulsion that comes from our nature, created by God. It is God who made us so needy of the other’s beauty. If we were self-sufficient, we would shut ourselves off from the world, but because we are not complete, we are compelled to seek the other. Plato quoted the myth of the origin of Eros; he said that Eros was the son of Penia, his mother, and was always in need of her. Maternal dependence is what pushes us to look for what can fill that need we feel. Eros, erotic love, pushes us to seek the other for what they can give us. But it is only one aspect of love, and we must not confuse erotic love with the love that God wants, which Jesus speaks about today in the gospel. 

The erotic drive can also trap us in a selfish quest to serve ourselves, forgetting that we are called not only to embrace what others can give us to enrich our lives but also to offer them what they need. We recognize that eros borders on selfishness, the pursuit of self-satisfaction, and the instrumentalization of others, which can even lead us to degrading behavior. We understand that if interpersonal relationships rely solely on the erotic drive and natural attraction, they are fragile and unstable. It doesn’t take much to tear them down and destroy them, making it difficult to establish lasting, faithful bonds based solely on erotic love. 

The love we discuss in today’s gospel is commanded because it does not stem from our biological, instinctive nature; it comes from a different nature. Today’s reading follows immediately after what we heard last Sunday; we remember that Jesus spoke about the true vine that must produce the fruits the Father expects. Today, Jesus clearly explains what this fruit of the true vine is: love—not the love that arises from our biological nature, eros; it comes from a new nature—the one that God gave us, the nature of sons and daughters of God. Only the sons and daughters of God are capable of this love, and in fact, this love has a new name—’agape,’ not eros. 

Agape comes from the verb ‘agapán,’ which was rarely used in classical Greece. It appears only about ten times across all ancient Greek texts. The Greeks dedicated hymns of praise to eros; they did not speak of agape. Instead, agape has become the defining expression of the Christian understanding of love. In the discourse Jesus gives to his disciples during the Last Supper, the verb ‘love’ is repeated 25 times, with no mention of eros but instead agape, agapán. We will hear this verb repeated five times in today’s passage, and the word love is used four times. 

Now, let us hear how and by whom we have been brought into this new nature that enables us to love. 

At that time, Jesus said, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.”

“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.” This is the origin of the love that Jesus says is his; it does not come from nature. From nature comes eros. When we discover something precious in a person or an object, we desire it and feel fulfilled when we get hold of it and make it ours; this is eros. Eros cannot exist in God because in God there is no such poverty; in him all is richness. He only loves; He is love. He gives; He does not seek but gives. 

Agape is independent of what the other can give me. I seek him or her only because I want his or her good; I want him or her to be happy. I pursue him or her because I have realized that he or she needs my love, and I am willing to dedicate my whole life to making him or her happy and to allowing him or her to live in joy. The love of Jesus is an entirely gratuitous love; in pure selflessness, it claims nothing in return. Of course, he tries to involve the other in these same dynamics of gratuitousness because only in this way does one become a fully human person. The last step of human evolution is not the ‘sapiens – sapiens.’ The ‘sapiens – sapiens’ can become a builder, a skilled manager of science and technology. 

The final stage of evolution is the person who loves, because knowledge alone can be wild. Someone is truly a person only when they allow this new nature, that of the child of God, to emerge in their life. This nature leads them to love their brother or sister as Jesus did. It is a love that dismisses notions of goodness and beauty, and even whether the other is a friend or an enemy—someone who has done good to me or hates me and may want to harm me. Agape is complete and unconditional giving to others. As an unconditional, free love, it also includes the enemy and does not stem from the biological nature that pulls us in the opposite direction. Instead, it comes from the Father—a gift from heaven that Jesus brought us. This love is the very essence of God; it is the ‘gold’ of God’s nature, and it is nothing other than this pure, unconditional love. 

Jesus is the beloved, fully engaged in this divine life and manifesting himself in us through the gift, becoming bread by consuming the last crumb of his own life out of love for humanity. That is why Jesus’ invitation is ‘remain in my love.’ It is a sealed love; its aroma is immediately recognizable because it is free. The expression of erotic love we experience is beautiful and good… when the young man says to his bride, ‘I can’t live without you…’ here is his vulnerability; ‘I’m willing to do anything to have you because if you are not mine, I will never be happy.’ This is eros. 

The declaration of love that Jesus makes, and that we must also make if we are moved by this love, is this: ‘I love you so much that I am willing to do anything to see you happy, the goal of my life is your happiness… I would give my life to make you happy, even if you hate me,’ Jesus will say, even if you crucify me. This love is not naturally opposed to the erotic impulse that God has placed within us, but it elevates eros, bringing it to its fullest expression in the gift of self, the reception of others’ beauty, and the offering of our own gifts in return. Eros reaches its highest point when it is lived as a gift, not as a possession. Unlike the eros that comes naturally and spontaneously, the love of Jesus, Christian love, is commanded. 

Let us listen: 

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. 

Jesus has recommended abiding in his love, but how does one do that? He says: “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” The commandment… and immediately afterward, he states that the only one is: “love one another as I love you.” 

First of all, what does observing the commandments involve? What are the commandments God gives and that must be obeyed? These are the commandments listed in the Old Testament: an external law that people were required to follow to remain faithful to God. The commandment Jesus refers to does not come from outside; it is not something external, like a law written on stone that I have to memorize and follow. The commandments Jesus obeyed were within him, and these same commandments are within us. 

What commandments did Jesus follow? Not the outward ones his Father would instruct him in daily. The commandments came from his nature as a Son of God; it was this nature that drove him to love unconditionally. If he had not loved, he would not have been true to himself. And it is from this new nature of children of God that the commandments we receive come. 

And now we ask ourselves: are there many or just one? There is only one commandment that comes from within: to love unconditionally, as the heavenly Father and Jesus do. But this single commandment is expressed in many concrete situations where I am called to demonstrate this love. Indeed, we are reminded in the first letter of John that love for God, which means abiding in this love, cannot be separated from love for brothers and sisters. ‘He who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he say that he loves God whom he does not see?’ This is the commandment we have received from him: loving even one’s own brother or sister as if they were God. As stated in the first letter of John, this love is not just spoken with words but shown through deeds of truth. 

Again, in chapter 4 of this first letter, John says: “Herein is love, it was not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave us his Son: dear friends, if God so loved us, we also ought to love our brothers and sisters.” It does not tell us that if He has loved us in this manner, we are to respond to His love by loving Him. No, the response to His love is to love others as He taught us. 

The Old Testament did not understand this love, which Jesus brought into the world through the divine life given to us. The ultimate rule of love in the Old Testament was ‘whatever you want people to do to you, do also to them.’ That is the law and the prophets. That is what the Old Testament summarized in the law of love. Whatever you want people to do, it said, do it to them. Now, the measure is no longer this justice but the love that Jesus manifested—a love that is the love of God, free, limitless, and unconditional. 

What is our fear of accepting this love? Is it the fear of losing ourselves by giving without measure? Jesus tells us, ‘Be careful because it is in this love where my joy is, and I want this joy to be in you, and your joy be complete.’ Jesus also said a phrase not found in the Gospels but in the Acts of the Apostles: “There is more joy in giving than in receiving.” Eros leads us to seek to get from the other; agape leads us not to consider what the other can give us, but to give in pure loss. This is the love of God. 

We find many joys in life when we meet the person with whom we share God’s love, whether it is throughout our entire married life or a great and profound joy when we receive a diploma. It is a great joy, but we ask ourselves: after all these joys… then what? We are created for infinite joy, and no earthly happiness can satisfy us. There is an old medieval saying: ‘For the one who is made for God, nothing less than God will satisfy him.’ We have written the need for infinity into our DNA. Qohelet already understood this: the longing for heaven, the desire that guides us to God, means that until we reach God, we do not experience true joy. To have God means to dwell in this love. 

This lasting joy exists only in those who abide in this love. That is why it is a joy felt in both good times and bad, when we are healthy and when we are sick, when our friends remain faithful and when they abandon or betray us. The first sign that love is blocked is the loss of joy within us. Here, pleasure, selfish satisfaction, and eros may remain, but not joy, because true joy comes only from this love. 

There is another aspect of love that is not expressed by the verb agapán but by the verb ‘filéin.’ It is the love between friends, and Jesus wants to include us in this form of love as well. 

Let’s listen to what he tells us: 

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 it to you. This I command you: love one another. 

No, I do not call them servants, says Jesus. Yet ‘servant of the Lord’ was the highest honorific title we find in the Old Testament, reserved for great figures like Moses, David, Joshua, and others. In the New Testament, Paul describes himself as a servant of the Lord, and even the only woman, Mary, is referred to by the early community as a servant of the Lord. Luke even has her say this marvelous phrase: ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ to show her complete willingness to serve God’s plan of love for the world. 

Now there is a new title of honor: ‘friend.’ And Jesus immediately highlights the difference between the servant and the friend, saying: The servant does not know his lord’s plans; the servant follows orders and does not need to ask why he must bow his head to do what he is told. The relationship between friends is completely different. Think about what it meant in Jesus’ time to be a friend of Caesar; the army commander was a significant figure who had to be obeyed. The head of the Praetorium had to be obeyed. A friend of Caesar had unrestricted access to the palace without credentials or a schedule; he could meet with the emperor at any time and was privy to all the secrets of the empire and its government. 

We also find a report of friendship in the Old Testament: Abraham is called the friend of God; he is the one to whom the Lord entrusts his problems. We remember the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities where the people behaved badly. God confides in his friend Abraham, saying, “Look, I am compelled to do away with these two cities.” 

Jesus does not want a servant relationship with him; he desires friends who share his project with full trust and commit to working together. Jesus cannot call his disciples ‘servants’ because he has shared with them what he has heard from the Father: God’s design of love for the world. He wants to involve them and convince them that they must work with him to realize this plan of love. Only friends are entrusted with these family secrets, while servants remain in the dark. If we continue to behave as servants, we will not engage freely and confidently with his call to us. 

Unfortunately, I believe many are still stuck in the relationship Moses established with God: that of obedient subjects to a lawgiver, like an employer paying an employee at the end of the day. Many still prefer this spirituality because they think they earn merit before this boss, God. No more, says Jesus; this spirituality must be left behind. 

Jesus wants to involve us so we understand how beautiful His plan is. When He convinces us, we are willing to bet our lives on this plan. If, on the other hand, we expect orders from Him, He will not give them to us; He wants to convince us and involve us freely. 

Of course, friendship is connected to generosity; the help offered by a friend is not something you get paid for. Even today, we understand that if I have to do a job at a friend’s house, the most I would ask is that he pay me for the materials, not for my work; the work is on my part because, among friends, there is a joy in serving others, seeing them happy, and doing something for them. This follows the logic of giving as a gift. When I give a gift, the other person doesn’t need to pay me back. I don’t want him to pay me; I just want him to understand that I am happy to be his friend and to accept this loving relationship. When you don’t want this friendship, you might receive a gift and then wonder how to repay it, because you want to end the relationship. 

Friendship is rooted in generosity and built through the free exchange of gifts and services. This reflects the kind of friendship Jesus seeks to establish with his disciples—one of joyful giving. The message concludes with a reminder of his commandment: ‘I leave you only this one commandment, that you love one another.’ It sums up the entire life lesson Jesus offers and demonstrates through his own person. Beyond this horizon of love shown in him, there is nothing higher we can reach. This love reveals that the life within us is not only from the earth but also a divine gift from above, from the heavenly Father. 

I wish you all a good Easter and a good week.