Dear Friends in Jesus Christ…, We have heard in the gospel “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." What is new in the commandment of love? I think Jesus is giving us a new identity, for we will be identified by others because of our love. This new commandment is an invitation to be persona Christi. The best book we should read in the Easter season is the Acts of the Apostles from the bible. If we carefully read we can see that the life of Christ is being repeated in the first church community. In his public ministry Jesus travelled from village to village to preach and teach and he healed the sick, gave site to the blind and raised up the dead. He was rejected, arrested, persecuted, killed; and on the third day he rose from the dead. We see the same with the apostles they traveled around the whole region and preached the gospel. They healed the sick cast out demons and even raised up the dead to life. They were rejected, persecuted, arrested and killed. But at the end church triumphed. The church was the extension of the risen Lord into space and time. We are challenged to reveal our identity as a Christian by following the commandment of love i.e. being a reflection of the risen Lord in our space and time as Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love me you will keep my commandments”; he also says this to us today. We could say that is a very strong statement by Jesus. Does this mean that every time we sin we do not love Jesus? Yes. Although we love Jesus, every time we commit sin we love something or someone else more than Jesus. If we love Jesus more than anything else we will keep ourselves free from sin for Jesus. If we love Jesus we will strive to give ourselves totally to him. When we sin we are giving ourselves to something other than Jesus or to somebody other than Jesus. And when we love Jesus with all our heart, soul, mind and strength we will not want to put anything, no matter how small, before Jesus. Again the words of Jesus in our Gospel are, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Sometimes we hear people make statements like, “Jesus understands that I am human. He will forgive me.” Jesus is forgiving, we do not doubt Jesus’ mercy. But if we love Jesus more than anything we will put Jesus before whatever it is that is tempting us and we will try to root that sin out of our lives completely. Loving Jesus therefore is not just something emotional; loving Jesus means changing our lives, reforming our lives, working on our personalities and characters, overcoming sinful habits, stretching ourselves to love as Jesus loved. Loving Jesus means thinking about ourselves and others as Jesus thinks. The renowned French artist Paul Gustave Dore once lost his passport while traveling in another country in Europe. When he came to a border crossing, he explained his predicament to one of the guards. Giving his name to the official, Dore hoped he would be recognized and allowed to pass. The guard, however, said that many people attempted to cross the border by claiming to be persons they were not. Dore insisted that he was the man he claimed to be. "All right," said the official, "we'll give you a test, and if you pass it we'll allow you to go through." Handing him a pencil and a sheet of paper, he told the artist to sketch several peasants standing nearby. Dore did it so quickly and skillfully that the guard was convinced he was indeed who he claimed to be. Dore's action confirmed his identity. In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us the mark of Christian identity: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another” (John13:34-5). Love is the Christian identity. Love is the Christian uniform. Love is the Christian habit. If you are wearing the habit of love, you are in. If you are not wearing love as a habit, you are out. A Christian name or a cross on a chain will not make us Christians unless we practice Jesus’ new commandment of love given in today’s Gospel.