The Modern “Loving” Person

 To love someone as Jesus loves is to share with them all the good we possess, especially the truth.

Jesus loves his disciples in that He tells them everything He has heard from the Father. He shared with them the truth which He had received from the Father. This is why He calls “friends” His disciples: “I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father” (John 15:15). If He had hidden from His disciples the truth, He would have kept part of His good to Himself and would have left the disciples in a lower position, as slaves.

When someone wants to control people and manipulate them better, this person needs to hide the truth, spread false ideas and undermine education. This is not what Jesus came to do. He did not come to make us slaves, but to set us free. This is why He told us the truth about ourselves, about His Father, about our final destiny and about the way to arrive to eternal life.

Nowadays there is a notion of love which is the opposite of this. A “loving” person does not stand for the truth, but lets everything go and plays along with whatever. This so called “loving person” perhaps knows the truth and agrees with it, but thinks that saying the truth is an act of imposition on the other person. The other person is perhaps going straight to the abyss of failure, but this “loving person” prefers not to warn them and let them slide peacefully to disaster.

We sometimes might be tempted to imitate this false love: perhaps, because of fear of being rejected, or because we do not fully appreciate the consequences of not saying the truth to our neighbors, or for other reasons. Other times, however, we realize that it is not yet the time to talk. In any case, we must keep in mind that the best we can share with our loved ones is the truth, because it is the only thing that will truly set them free. Sharing the truth is not forcing other people to accept it, but offering it to their consciences so that their decisions are empowered. Only the one who knows the truth can choose to act according to the truth.

The truth is not a wall between you and your happiness, but is actually the door, the only door towards the achievement of your dreams.

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