God’s love, as related by Jacques Maritain in his book, Raissa’s Journal, is sweet only to those who are already saints and to those who do not know what they are talking about. Fr. Rolheiser writes that this is true not just of God’s love, but of all love. Love isn’t easy, except in our daydreams. The older we get, the more we sense what love actually demands. I wonder sometimes whether I, or almost anyone else, have much sense of what that over-used word, love, really means. When we are honest, we sense our own distance from its full meaning. We too easily read Jesus’ most important commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you!” We read this command simplistically, romantically, and in a one-sided, over-confident manner. Like the deepest part of the gospel to which it is linked, the crucifixion, it is very, very difficult to imitate. Why? It’s one thing to love someone who adores you, it’s quite another to love someone who wants you dead! But that’s the real test. Jesus’ command to love contains a critical subordinate clause, “as I have loved you!” What was unique in the way he loved us? Where Jesus stretches us beyond our natural instincts and all self-delusion is in his command to love our enemies, 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. The gospel is uncompromising: We are loving or non-loving not based on how we respond to those who love us but based on how we respond to those who hate us and are cold, hostile, and murderous toward us. That’s the hard, non-negotiable truth underlying Jesus’ command to love and, when we are honest, we must admit that we are still a long way from measuring up to that. What shatters our illusion of love is the presence in our lives of people who hate us. They’re the test. It’s here where 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.