Word of Life

May 2007

Love for one another is a revolutionary power. It can transform the world.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13: 35)

Jesus was seated at table with his friends. It was his last supper before he left this world, the most solemn moment for him to disclose his last wish, almost a will: ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another’ (John 13:34). Throughout the centuries, this was to be the distinguishing mark of Jesus’ disciples: from this everyone would recognize them!

And so it was, from the very beginning. The first community of believers in Jerusalem enjoyed the good will and respect of everyone precisely because of its unity, (Acts 2: 47; 4: 32; 5: 13), so much so that more people joined its ranks each day. (see Acts 2: 47)

Even a few years later Tertullian, one of the first Christian writers, reported what was being said of the Christians: ‘See how they love one another, and how they are ready even to die for one another’. It was Jesus’ words coming true:

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13: 35)

Mutual love therefore is the ‘attire that Christians old and young, men and women, married or not, adults and children, sick or healthy, can wear in order to shout out always and everywhere with their own lives the One they believe in, the One they want to love.’

In that unity born from mutual love among the disciples of Jesus, there is almost a mirror image, a making visible of the God Jesus revealed as Love: the Church is the icon of the Trinity.

Today more than ever, this is the best way to proclaim the Gospel. A society often befuddled by too many words looks for witnesses before teachers; it wants role models before sermons. It is more easily engaged if it sees a Gospel turned into life, able to create new relationships, with the hallmark of fraternity and love.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13: 35)

How can we live this Word of Life? By keeping mutual love alive among us and by forming ‘living cells’ of it everywhere.

Chiara Lubich wrote: ‘If a city were set alight at various points, even by small fires, but they managed to resist being put out, soon the city would be aflame. If a city, in the most different places, were lit up by the fire that Jesus brought on earth, and this fire, through the goodwill of the people who lived there, managed to resist the ice of the world, we would soon have the city aflame with the love of God.

‘The fire that Jesus brought to earth is himself. It is charity: love which not only binds the soul to God, but also souls to one another….

‘Two or more people fused in the name of Christ, who are not afraid or ashamed to declare explicitly to one another their desire to love God, but who actually make of this unity in Christ their Ideal, are a divine power in the world.

‘And in every city these souls could spring up in families: father and mother, son and father, mother and mother-in-law. They could meet in parishes, in associations, in social bodies, in schools, in offices, everywhere.

‘It is not necessary for them to be saints already, or Jesus would have said so. It is enough for them to be united in the name of Christ and that they never go back on this unity.

‘Naturally, they will not remain two or three for very long, for charity spreads of itself and grows by enormous proportions.

‘Every small cell, set alight by God in any point of the earth, will necessarily spread, and Providence will distribute these flames, these souls on fire, wherever it thinks fit, so that the world in many places may be restored to the warmth of the love of God, and hope again.’

By Fabio Ciardi and Gabriella Fallacara