Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter

An often-heard complaint about Catholicism is that there are just too many rules. The Church tells us what we should and should not do. Who can receive the sacraments and who can’t. When we should avoid eating meat and when we should fast. And if we break the rules, there are clear-cut instructions on who we should tell, how we have to say it and what it takes to repair our infraction.

But the next time you hear someone say that the Catholic Church is too wrapped up in policies, procedures and regulations, just point them to today’s reading from the Gospel of John.

Despite all the lengthy documents that exist to outline the rules of Catholicism, Jesus sums everything up for his disciples in one basic rule that trumps all others:

“This I command you: love one another.”

Now, if you are having a feeling of déjà vu, you’re not alone. We heard this same passage from John’s Gospel just one week ago, and Jesus delivered the same message in another Gospel reading on the first Sunday of May.

And no, this doesn’t mean that someone made a mistake in compiling the Lectionary or that they were short on Gospel passages to choose for the readings. In this case, the repetition of the passage is due to its importance. After all the pages upon pages of detailed laws recorded in the Old Testament, Jesus breaks things down into one simple, easy-to-digest statement that covers everything we as Christians are called to do.

But the beauty of this commandment isn’t in what Jesus tells his disciples. The most important teaching here lies in what Jesus doesn’t say.

Aside from telling us that we should mirror the love he has shown us, Jesus does not attach any qualifiers to his commandment. He doesn’t say “love those who always agree with you.” We aren’t asked to “love others who aren’t different from you.” There’s no caveat to “love others as long as they show you their appreciation.” And I’m certain Jesus never said “love one another, but be sure to check for proper documentation of legal status first.”

A lot of people – including some Catholics – have pointed fingers at Church leaders over their social justice policies. The U.S. bishops have been accused of being too liberal and in some cases, they’ve even been labeled as socialists. One of the most outrageous examples came last year when the bishops’ Catholic Campaign for Human Development – an organization that gets down in the trenches to help the poorest of the poor – was attacked by a coalition of other Catholic groups because of the people it associated with in the process of trying to bring God’s love to those most in need.

At the root of such divisions and name-calling is often an over-emphasis on some set of rules. In the case of CCHD, it was one organization claiming that another had worked with a third who may or may not have at one time in their history violated the rules of the Church. And in the battle over immigration, we’ve gone beyond actions alone being “illegal” if they violate the law; now, it is the people themselves who are given that label simply because their being in a certain place is against someone’s rules.

But in the eyes of Jesus, it doesn’t matter if a person has violated the rulebook of their society, their country or even their church. As long as they’ve kept that one commandment – “love one another as I love you” – they’re still okay in his book.

And really, that’s the only book that counts.

Scott Alessi