We often too easily read this verse simplistically, romantically, and in a one-sided, over-confident manner. What does it mean to obey Jesus’ commandment to love? Fr. Rolheiser writes that this command to love one another, as Jesus has shown us his love contains the most important challenge of the gospel and, like the deepest part of the gospel to which it is linked, the crucifixion, is very difficult to imitate. Why? It’s easy to consider ourselves as loving if we only look at one side of things, namely, how we relate to those people who are loving, warm, respectful, and gracious towards us. If we rate ourselves on how we feel about ourselves in our best moments among like-minded friends, we can easily conclude that we are loving persons and measure up to Jesus’ command to love as he did. That command, love and forgive your enemies, more than any creedal formula or other moral issues, is the litmus test for Christian discipleship. We can ardently believe in and defend every item in the creed and fight passionately for justice in all its dimensions. Still, the real test of whether or not we are followers of Jesus is the capacity or non-capacity to forgive an enemy, to remain warm and loving towards someone who is not warm and loving to us. There’s a sobering challenge in an old Stevie Nicks song, “Gold Dust Woman,” when she suggests that it’s good that, at a point in life, someone “shatters our illusion of love” because far too often, blind to its own true intentions, our love is manipulative and self-serving. Too often, the song points out, we are lousy lovers who unconsciously pick our prey. What shatters our illusion of love is the presence of people who hate us in our lives. They’re the test. Here, we have to measure up: If we can love them, we’re real lovers; if we can’t, we’re still under a self-serving illusion.