The new commandment and new outlook!
5th Sunday in Easter time - May 18, 2025
Acts 14: 21-27; Revelation 21: 1-5; John 13: 31-33, 34-35
Behold I
make all things new – that promise of the Lord is the core of the Easter
experience… the Lord promises each one of us, a new world, a new beginning, a
new life! That is fundamentally the Resurrection experience. Whatever happens
around us in the world, we cannot give into hopelessness or desperation! No, we
cannot! “Never lose hope. Do not let yourself be robbed of hope!”, the beloved
deceased holy father, Pope Francis had insisted always... Yes, our call is to
assist the Creator to make all things new – to behold a new heaven and a new
earth!
The
Liturgy today presents to us the promise from the Father to make everything
new… that is a promise, and not just that! It is also an invitation, a challenge
to assist at this renovation. The promise and the process to renovation, goes
through two channels of what we can and what we ought to be involved in – to
take into serious consideration, the new commandment given to us and the new
outlook offered to us!
While the
second reading makes us aware of the promise that the Lord has for us – to make
everything new for us – the Gospel and the first reading beckon us to realise
our role in the task, outlining the way to accomplish the task, to realise the
promise – a line of action with two key elements: the new commandment and the
new outlook!
As said
already, we cannot expect that the renovation of the world could happen all by
itself, automatically. It cannot. We are called to be agents of that
renovation, the reconstruction that has to be taken up in and through, a new
commandment – the new commandment given by the Lord, that we see in the Gospel
today. The Commandment of love, that is the salvific node that we have from the
Risen Lord. When we truly love each other, we shall be agents of renovation of
this world, a world that is so much affected by selfishness, indifference and
hatred.
The New Commandment is to love, to love each other without any
reserve. There can be no love greater than giving one’s life for the one who is
loved. And that is exactly what the Lord did, and that is what he leaves as an
example for us to follow. The new
commandment is to love and that love alone can renew the world. The world
stands in need of love, a love that is selfless, a love that is life-giving, a love that is salvific, a love
that creates, recreates and re-enlivens the whole humanity, the world, and the
whole universe!
Commandment of Love, comes as the essence and the summary of the
whole Christian presence. Christ speaks of the time that he will not be with
his disciples and immediately presents them with the Commandment of love, as if
to say – where there is love there is Christ. The corollary is more significant
and consequential – where there is no love there is no Christ. “By this all
will know that you are my disciples – if you have love for one another!” One
cannot build the renewed world, without a genuine Christ-like love in one’s
heart.
The new things that the Lord promises to make are not merely
external… they are more about the new outlook that are created within us. What
makes us truly agents of renewal of the world, is not so much what we can do
out there, as much as what we can do within us: bringing out the new outlook
that we need to have within us: the outlook of the Risen Lord. “We all have to
endure hardships” in order that we can become truly agents of the new things
that the Lord promises us.
Today
there are many who propose projects and make manifestos, those who gather
masses and garner public opinion, those who initiate movements and influence
the society – all in the name of creating a new social order or creating a new
world, in the name of progress and development. The Word today gives us the
touchstone of Christian outlook - the commandment of love. St. Augustine said
it in beautiful words, "Love, and do what you will. If you keep silence,
do it out of love. If you cry out, do it out of love. If you refrain from
punishing, do it out of love."
It is this love, the new commandment that can create a new outlook
within us and this new outlook alone can lead us towards being agents of a new
world, agents of the new things that we can hope for, from the hands of the
Lord. We have no right absolutely to expect a “making of new things altogether”
unless we are ready to obey the new commandment, and adapt to the new outlook
that the Risen Lord offers us: the outlook of caring for the least, the concern
for those who are suffering, the commitment to the marginalized, the prophecy
that challenges the neglected justice and denied rights – these which are inalienable
part of the process of making everything new – the Lord will wipe away every
tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be
mourning nor crying nor pain any more. And the Lord will do it through only you
and me! Every hand of a disciple of Christ should wipe the tears in the eyes of
those in agony. Every word of a Christian should give new life to those who
have lost hope. Every community of faith should sustain those who mourn and cry
in society around itself.
And today, we see that there are no coincidences… a providential event
is happening… there is a new thing happening today: the new Pope who takes up
his Petrine Responsibility today! As Pope Leo XIV takes up his
responsibility today, we have a responsibility, not just one responsibility, but a triple responsibility –
to heed to our call to the new commandment of love, to develop within us a new
outlook of the Risen Lord, and thirdly, to allow the Lord to make use of us as
agents of the new world that the Lord wishes to create through us.
Behold I make everything new… is not just a promise, but a commitment, a
task on our part to take up, on behalf of the Lord and the people of God
