May 18 Sun
What is Christ’s New Commandment?
Christ reveals his New Commandment to his closest disciples at the Last Supper. This command is not “one more thing” to do. It is the one thing to do. It is the one command that sums up the two commandments (to love God above all and neighbor as oneself), that encompasses the Ten Commandments, and that summarizes the entire moral law.
We are to love each other. What is the love we are talking about? It is to give true good to another.
It is new because the model for loving one another is ‘the way Christ loved’. How did He love? He laid down his life in the most painful, gruesome death. So, real love is giving yourself without conditions, until it hurts.
It is what mothers and fathers do for their families, what true friends do for one another, what soldiers do for their country, what artists do for their art.
With this same love, Christ honors his Father, and how the Father is pleased with his Son.
So, we can summarize the entire moral law and the entire mode of living of a follower of Christ in this New Commandment: Love one another with a sacrificial love.
Doing the right thing for another, acting for another person’s true good, is often hard because we are selfish, pleasure-seeking, weak, angry, indifferent, and more.
We might think of heaven as a place of great beauty and happiness of every kind. It is that. But it is the place where love dwells.
Practical application: to live the New Commandment, we must know first what is ‘a loving thing’. Usually, this is obvious. If your child is sick, you take care of him. If your elderly neighbor is struggling to carry something, you offer to help her. Some people are experts at making other people happy by giving of themselves.
However, sometimes it is hard to know what the right thing to do is. Should I quit my job because it is hurting my family life? Should I move somewhere else for the sake of my family? What profession should I choose to best serve others?
So, to love, we need prudence and justice. Justice is giving others what you owe them, and Christ is saying we owe each other ‘love’. Prudence is sound decision-making.
The second part of living the New Commandment is making the sacrifice. Doing the true good of the other will cost us a tiny amount or a great deal. This is where the virtues of temperance and fortitude are vital. Temperance is the habit by which we postpone or forgo some pleasure for a good reason. Fortitude is doing the right thing even though it might be hard or we might be afraid to. This is one reason the Church gives us forty days of Lent every year and why she asks us to practice a little Lent often.
If love is the game, then the ascetical life is the training, calisthenics, coaching, and practice sessions we need to play that game.
When we love one another–and this takes sacrifice–not only do we fulfill the New Commandment, but we make a little bit of heaven present on earth.