Vigils Reading

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

a homily by St Gregory the Great6

Since all of our Lord’s sacred utterances contain commandments, why does he say about love as if it were a special commandment: This is my commandment, that you love one another? It is because every commandment is about love, and they all add up to one commandment because whatever is commanded is founded on love alone. As a tree’s many branches come from one root, so do many virtues come forth from love alone. The branch which is our good works has no sap unless it remains attached to the root of love. Our Lord’s commandments are then both many and one: many through the variety of the works, one in their root which is love. He himself instructs us to love our friends in him, and our enemies for his sake. That person truly possesses love who loves his friend in God and his enemy for God’s sake.

There are some people who love their neighbors, drawn by blood relationship or by natural affection, and Scripture does not oppose this kind of love. But what we give freely and naturally is one thing, and the obedience we owe to the Lord’s commandments out of love is another. Those I’ve mentioned indisputably love their neighbors, yet they don’t attain love’s sublime rewards since their love does not come from spiritual but from natural motives.

Therefore when the Lord said: This is my commandment, that you love one another, he added immediately: Just as I have loved you, meaning, ‘You must love for the same reason that I have loved you.’ Dearly beloved, we must consider this carefully. When our ancient enemy draws our hearts to delight in temporal things, he is stirring up a weaker neighbor against us. This neighbor may be plotting to take away the very things we love. In doing this our ancient enemy is not concerned to do away with our earthly possessions; he wants to destroy our lives. Suddenly we are set on fire with hatred, and while we desire to be outwardly unconquerable, inwardly we are gravely wounded. When we defend our small outer possession, we lose our great inner one, since when we love something temporal we lose our true love. Everyone who takes away our possessions is an enemy. But if we begin to hate our enemy, our loss is of something internal. When then we suffer something external from a neighbor, we must be on our guard against a hidden ravager within. This one is never better overcome then when we love the one who ravages us from without. The unique, the highest proof of love is this, to love the person who is against us. This is why Truth himself bore the suffering of the cross and yet bestowed his love on his persecutors, saying: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Why should we wonder that his living disciples loved their enemies, when their dying master loved his. He expressed the depth of his love when he said: No one has greater love than this, than that he lay down his life for his friends. The Lord had come to die even for his enemies, and yet he said he would lay down his life for his friends to show us that when we are able to win over our enemies by loving them even our persecutors are our friends.

But no one is persecuting us to the point of death. How then can we prove that we love our friends?… John the Baptist says: Let him who has two tunics give to him who has none. Will a person, then, who will not give up his tunic for the sake of God during quiet times give up his life during a persecution? Cultivate the virtue of love in tranquil times by showing mercy, then, so that it will be unconquerable in times of disorder. Learn first to give up your possession for almighty God, and then yourself