(Audio)
Because of the hardness of your hearts
he wrote you this commandment.
We are called to live by the new commandment of love. Jesus has given us new hearts.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (see Ezekiel 36:26)
Our new hearts enable us to live in accord with God's original plan for things. They allow us to live for the purpose of our lives rather than merely making do with brokenness and sin. Relationships take on new meaning as we become rooted and grounded in love.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.
Our relationships with one another are restored to their original meaning. They become a participation in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They partake in the mission of Jesus.
This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church (see Ephesians 5:32).
It is not just the specifically sacramental relationships that should be different. We are called to a supernatural unity even among our friends.
The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me (see John 17:22).
It is on this spiritual level of friendship that we are the most able to move beyond friends of convenience or utility to find instead a "faithful friend beyond price".
For he who fears God behaves accordingly,
and his friend will be like himself.
It is of this friendship that David speaks when he says, "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!" (See Psalm 133:1).
We recognize that we sometimes fail to live up to this new heart we have been given. May the Spirit renew us again today so that all of our interactions with others may be chances to call other people friends just as God first does to us.
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