Love is at the center of Jesus’ farewell discourse: the love of the Father for the Son, the love for Jesus which means keeping his commandments.

Those who were listening to Jesus could easily recognize in his words an echo of the Book of Wisdom: "Loving her means keeping her laws" (Wis 6:18) and, "She is readily perceived by those who love her" (Wis 6:12). In particular, revealing himself to those who love finds a parallel in the Hebrew Scriptures in Wisdom 1:2 where it says that the Lord will manifest himself to those who believe in him.

The sense of the words we are proposing here is: the Father loves those who love the Son, and the Son in turn loves them and reveals himself to them.

Jesus, however, demands that one loves. We cannot conceive of Christians who do not have this dynamism, this charge of love in their hearts. A clock doesn’t work, it doesn’t tell the time—we wouldn’t even call it a clock—if its batteries are dead. It’s the same with Christians. If they are not constantly striving to love, they are not worthy of the name Christian.

The reason for this is that all of Jesus’ commandments can be summed up in one: love of God and love of neighbor in whom we recognize and love Jesus.

Love is not just a matter of feelings; it needs to be expressed in concrete terms, in serving our brothers and sisters, especially those who are near us, beginningwith the little things, the most humble acts of service.

Charles de Foucauld once said: "When you love someone, you are really in that person through love, you live in him through love, you no longer live in yourself, you are _detached’ from yourself, _outside’ of yourself."¹

When we love, the light of Jesus makes its way into our hearts, just as he promised: "I will reveal myself to the one who loves me" (cf. Jn 14:21). Love is the source of light. By loving we have a greater understanding of God who is Love.

This leads us to love even more and to deepen the relationship with our neighbor.

This light, this loving knowledge of God is therefore the seal, the proof of true love. And we can experience it in different ways, because light takes on a particular color or shade in each one of us. But it also has common characteristics: it helps us to understand the will of God, it gives us peace, serenity, and an ever new understanding of the word of God. It’s a heart-warming light which encourages us to walk along the way of life with growing confidence and determination. When the shadows of life make our way uncertain, when darkness threatens to stop us, these words of the Gospel will remind us that light is turned on by loving and that even one small gesture of concrete love (a prayer, a smile, a word) will give us enough light to go forward.

Some bicycles have a headlight that works as long as you keep peddling. If you stop, you find yourself in darkness, but if you start pedaling again, the dynamo will provide the light you need to see the way.

We can apply this to our life: we need only to re-activate love, true love, love which gives without expecting anything in return, in order to re-enkindle within ourselves faith and hope.

Chiara Lubich

The commentary to the Word of Life is translated in 90 different languages and dialects, and reaches more than 14 million people worldwide, through the press, and radio and TV programs. If you would like to read experiences of life related to this or to past "Words of Life," they can be found in Living City magazine, the monthly publication of the Focolare Movement. For information, or to subscribe, write to: Living City, P.O. Box 837, Bronx, NY 10465. A book, From Scripture to Life, containing Words of Life with commentary by Chiara Lubich and related experiences of life is available through New City Press, the publishing house of the Focolare, 202 Cardinal Road, Hyde Park, NY 12538. To order the book or magazine, call: 1-800-462-5980. E-mail: ncporder@aol.com.