It’s hard to recognize how far we are at times from the love Jesus speaks to in today’s gospel reading. It is easy for us to feel connected to the commandment of Jesus to “love one another” when, in reality, all we do is love those who love us. The real test of this commandment comes in loving those who have hurt us, who don’t like us, and we don’t want to be around. Fr. Ron Rolheiser points out that the type of love most of us practice is self-serving and often manipulative. “The love of Jesus takes us past our natural instinct to love those who love us and challenges us to be warm to those who are cold to us, to be kind to those who are cruel to us, to do good to those who hate us, to forgive those who hurt us, to forgive those who won’t forgive us, and to ultimately love and forgive those who are trying to kill us.” Jesus’ command to love and forgive your enemy is more than a creedal formula; it is the litmus test for Christian discipleship. Fr. Rolheiser says we can ardently believe in and defend every item in the creed and fight passionately for justice in all its dimensions, “but 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. What shatters our illusion of love is the presence in our lives of people who hate us. 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.”