As I love you

The Gospel today urged me to ponder on this verse. But to be more specific during mass, I distinctly heard that I was being moved to write about "undemanding love", I thought, is it unconditional love that I am being sked to share about?

"This is my commandment: Love one another as I love you"--John 15:12

I was reminded that to truly "love" is to be undemanding, to be understanding and to be accepting of the people around us. More often than not, "if" the person did not deliver his promise(s) to do this, to serve like this, to deliver this---many expectation of ours(imagined or otherwise), the usual human reaction is to ignore the person, give him the cold shoulder, and many other forms of human behavior to let the person know that we were hurt and not ready to express our "love" and be vulnerable to this person again. More often than not, if someone or something do not "deliver" on our expectations, we inhibit to express our love, and sometimes even cease to express our love. I think we do this so as not to be vulnerable.

But to truly love is to be vulnerable. To be ready that the response to our love is nothing. And yet continue to express our love.

I believe that we are called to love the way He loves us. His love is for everyone. He became vulnerable on the cross for all of us. The greatest manifestation of His love.

Writing about it and talking about it is easy. But to truly live and love the way He loves us is difficult. Honestly examine the details of our own lives, let us look at our own shortcomings and see the evident hypocrisy in the way we sometimes express our imperfect way of love. To move from lip service to actually making this way of "loving one another" real in our lives is our daily call in everything that we do.

Lord, I pray for the grace to love the way You love us.