Page 23 - Fr.Emil5

renews those who listen to it (or rather, those who act in
obedience to it) but it is that particular love which the Lord

distinguished from all carnal affection by adding love one
another as I have loved you.

This is the love that renews us, making us new men, heirs of
the New Testament, singers of the new song. It was this love,
my beloved brethren, that renewed the patriarchs and prophets

of old, and later renewed the blessed apostles. This is the love
that is now renewing the nations, and from among the universal
race of man, which overspreads the whole world, is making and
gathering together a new people, the body of the newly-married

spouse of the only-begotten Son of God. Of her the Song of
Songs says, Who is she who is coming up, clothed in white?
Clothed in white because she has been renewed; and how else

can she have been renewed but by the new commandment?
Because of this, the members of the people of God have a

mutual interest in one another; and if one member suffers then
all the members suffer with it; and if one member is honoured
then all the members rejoice with it. For this they hear and this

they observe: I give you a new commandment: love one
another: not as people who pretend to love in order to
corrupt one another, nor indeed as people love one
another genuinely but in a human way. Rather, they love

one another as those who belong to God. All of them are
children of the Most High and consequently brethren of his

only Son. They share with each other the love with which
he leads them to the end that will bring them fulfilment and
the true satisfaction of their real desires. For when God is
all in all, there is no desire that is unfulfilled.

This love is bestowed on us by him who said, Just as I have

loved you, you also must love one another. He loved us so that
we should love one another. By loving us he bound us to one
another in mutual love, and by this gentle bond united us into
the body of which he is the most noble Head.

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