Pope Benedict XVI continued his weekly catechesis on the apostles today, speaking in his weekly audience about the writings of St. John, including I John 4:6: "God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them." Also, in a renewed appeal for peace in the Middle East, for the cease fire that could be possible, and for intensified prayer, he quoted the words of his predecessors, Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II.
He highlighted three points about the components of Christian love: (1) "The essential constituent of God is love", and all of His activities are done from love, as a description of the nature of God; (2) God did not only make statements about love, but also gave Himself in love through Christ's death on the cross; and (3) we are called to an active response to God's love, to love each other as God has loved us, going beyond the Old Testament's instruction to love each other as we love ourselves.
The Vatican summary of the message is here.
Here is an excerpt from the article in P.I.M.E. Asia News - Italy:
"These words of Jesus, ‘as I have loved you’, invite us and unnerve us at the same time; they are a Christological goal that may appear unreachable, but at the same time they are a stimulus that does not allow us to stop and rest on what we have been able to achieve."
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