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Manila Bulletin devider Opinion devider I have called you friends

I have called you friends

Published May 23, 2025 12:05 am  |  Updated May 22, 2025 06:24 pm
REFLECTIONS TODAY
With the power of God’s love in them, Jesus’ disciples are now called to a transformation of life and identity; they are now to be counted as “friends” of Jesus, not his “slaves.”
And it is a far more intimate friendship than the one we commonly know because this involves “laying down one’s life for one’s friends,” in the very example of Jesus’ self-sacrificial love.
Jesus has full trust that the disciples will be capable of responding to his commandment of love because behind it is the power of his word:
“I have called you… I who chose you and appointed you.”These call and mission are sustained and nourished by prayer: “Whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.” We can then count on the continuity of Jesus’ mission in the world, not because of our personal capacity and talents, but because it is founded on the dynamics of love and friendship won for us by Jesus, our Master and Friend.
Responsorial Psalm • Ps 57
“I will give you thanks among the peoples, O Lord.” or “Alleluia.”
Gospel • John 15:12-17
Jesus said to his disciples: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you. 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.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.
Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.
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