Our New Heaven And Our New Earth

Behold, I make all things new! (Rev21:1 and ff.)

I give you a new commandment: love one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. (Jn 13:31 and ff.)

A new way of loving!

A new way of living!

Loving the old way has long lost its power. Living the old way has long lost its life.

Loving the old way is loving MY way. Living the old way is living life MY way.

Loving MY way is expecting others to accept the terms of my loving them. It means leading them and ordering them in such a way as to direct everyone into an inward spiral that culminates in their thanking me, in their admiring me, in their marveling in awe at my own imagined greatness and superiority over them. Loving MY way is siphoning life out of the other. Loving MY way is making others hate themselves for not being like me. Loving MY way is to create others in MY own image and likeness. Loving MY way is the antithesis of the Divine Creation. Loving MY way is usurping the place of God in my life and that of the others. Loving MY way is losing my way to God and to others. Loving MY way is actually hating myself for it necessarily implies getting God and others out of my way. It means removing them from the equation of the whole economy of Divine Love, and in so doing, reducing the said equation into nothing but a dung heap.

Jesus reminds us quite emphatically of what it truly means to love the new and renewing way. Loving the NEW way is loving the Jesus Way. Living the new way is living the Jesus Way.

To love like Jesus is not to be a clone of Jesus. To live like Jesus is not to be a facsimile of Jesus. He thus reminded his disciples: “I shall be with you but only for a little while.” “I will be returning to the Father, you will be left on your own; go on and do as I did with you.” To love and live like Jesus is to strive to love and live in humility and selflessness. To love and live like Jesus is to discard our old way of measuring others’ worth by the love that they give back to us. To love and live like Jesus is to freely and happily dispose of all that is in us that others may live life to the full. To love and live like Jesus is to die like Him that the seed of love may take root and grow and bear much fruit in others. To love and live like Jesus is to share in His resurrection through the harvest of the love that we have so planted in others.

It is only by truly loving and living like Our Lord that we effectively and actively participate in the building of our New Heaven and our New Earth!