Following Christ is not complicated. In fact, today Jesus reduces the essence of what it means to be his follower into one sentence.
This sentence is his New Commandment, a commandment that summarizes everything he has taught: "Love one another as I have loved you." If we do that, we are on Christ's path, and we will experience the joy and meaning that only God can give.
And to make it even simpler (because he knows that we tend to complicate things unnecessarily), Jesus explains exactly what he means by the word "love," a word the Devil is always trying to distort: "A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends."
In other words, love is self-giving, and so, the greater the self-giving, the greater the love. When we put our lives at the service of others, when we live in order to give and not to take, when we are willing to suffer so that someone else can rejoice, then we may call ourselves his disciples.
But Jesus went even further in order to make sure we would understand. He didn't explain the meaning of true love just with words; he also explained it with his deeds, with his own suffering and death.
He accepted mockery, humiliation, torture, rejection, injustice, misunderstanding, betrayal, and finally death, not because he was too weak to resist, but to show us what love really is: self-giving, self-forgetful generosity.
Jesus Christ hanging on the cross; bearing the weight of our sins; thinking not of himself but of the men and women he came to save, even pleading for their forgiveness up until the very end; giving without counting the cost, even without asking for something in return - this is God's idea of love. It is ours?
Turning Our Work into Love
This idea of true love (self-giving, not self-getting), helps explain the Church's vision of work. Popular culture encourages us to live for the weekend. It often sees work as a necessary evil.
But Christ's perspective is different. The Church teaches us that there is dignity in human work. From manual labor, to study, to the fine arts, human work "honor's the Creator's gifts" and "prolongs the work of creation" (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2427). By our work, we also "contribute to the abundance that will benefit all" (Catechism #2429).
In other words, from God's perspective, the very work we engage in on a daily basis can be an expression of our Christian love.
Working hard, if our heart is in the right place, is one of the most basic ways that we can love God. Working long hours purely out of self-centered ambition or greed is not showing love for God. But pouring our time and energy into improving the world and making a living for ourselves and our loved ones is a beautiful form of self-giving.
Jesus did that for almost thirty years, as he worked in the carpenter's shop in Nazareth, sweating and exhausting himself day after day. Mary did it for even longer, as she took care of the household, cooking and cleaning and reaching out to her neighbors.
We don't have to enter a monastery to become experts in Christian love. We just have to exercise our faith, so that God's idea of love becomes our idea of love. That's the path to true wisdom and lasting joy.
Today, as Jesus renews his commitment to us in this Mass, let's promise that we will let him give this meaning to our labors this week, by doing our very best in all we do, for God's sake.