NOTES for Joh 15:9-17

How piercing are the words about the love that lays down “one’s life for one’s friends”... My own response to these words is bewilderment and the realization that this is impossible by human strength, and therefore the recognition that I myself do not love... How greatly must one love in order to die for others? We have only one example before us, the foremost and most important for each of us: Jesus Christ. How greatly He loves every one of us, since He went to death for our sake! And not merely to death, but to torment beyond all bounds, though He was without sin and without guilt. Here lies the most important thing: to look at Him, understanding that only He can love in this way and share this love with those who believe in Him; to rejoice in our salvation, which came through the Lord and His sacrifice, rather than grieve because we ourselves cannot love like this. Then, in us as in many others, He will be able to do something worthy of His name. This is how, for example, He acted through Maximilian Kolbe and Mother Maria, who were in concentration camps and took the place in gas chambers of those who had been condemned to death.