Year C

May 18, 2025

On this page you will find:

The readings for Mass, the Mass leaflet with the choice of hymns
A sample universal prayer available for download , in PDF and editable Word formats.
A meditation on the Sunday Gospel , a spiritual text and a commentary by Marie-Noëlle Thabut

5th Sunday of Easter

Inauguration Mass

of Pope Leo XIV

“I give you a new commandment:
It is about loving one another.
How I loved you,
You too must love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples:
if you have love for one another.

John 13:34-35

Readings from the Mass

https://www.aelf.org/2025-05-18/romain/messe

Mass leaflet

Universal Prayer

Lectio Divina
Consult this page for a prayerful preparation for the liturgy and then read the meditations below.

Meditation by Pope Francis

Regina Cæli

Saint Peter's Square

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Today’s Gospel leads us to the Upper Room to hear some of the words Jesus addressed to his disciples in his “Farewell Discourse” before his Passion. After washing the feet of the Twelve, he said to them, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (Jn 13:34). But in what sense does Jesus call this commandment “new”? For we know that, already in the Old Testament, God had commanded the members of his people to love their neighbor as themselves (see Lev 19:18). Jesus himself, when asked which was the greatest commandment in the Law, replied that the first was to love God with all your heart and the second was to love your neighbor as yourself (cf. Mt 22:38-39).

So, what is new about this commandment that Jesus entrusts to his disciples? Why does he call it the “new commandment”? The old commandment of love has become new because it has been completed by this addition: “as I have loved you.” The newness lies entirely in the love of Jesus Christ, the love with which he gave his life for us. It is the love of God, universal, unconditional, and limitless, which reaches its culmination on the cross. At this moment of utter humility and surrender to the Father, the Son of God showed and gave the world the fullness of love. By reflecting on Christ’s passion and agony, the disciples understood the meaning of his words: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

Jesus loved us first; he loved us despite our frailties, our limitations, and our human weaknesses. He is the one who made us worthy of his love, which knows no bounds and never ends. In giving us the new commandment, he asks us to love one another not only, and not so much, with our own love, but with his, which the Holy Spirit infuses into our hearts if we invoke him with faith. In this way—and only in this way—can we love one another not only as we love ourselves, but as he loved us, that is, immensely more. Indeed, God loves us far more than we love ourselves. In this way, we can spread everywhere the seed of love that renews relationships between peoples and opens horizons of hope. Jesus always opens horizons of hope; his love opens horizons of hope. This love makes us become new men, brothers and sisters in the Lord, and makes us the new People of God, that is, the Church, in which all are called to love Christ and, in Him, to love one another.

The love manifested in the cross of Christ, the love he calls us to live, is the only force that transforms our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh; the only force capable of transforming our hearts is the love of Jesus, if we too love with that love. And this love enables us to love our enemies and forgive those who have wronged us. I'm going to ask you a question. Let each of you answer in your heart. Am I capable of loving my enemies? We all know people—I don't know if they are enemies—who don't get along with us, who are "on the other side"; or some have people who have hurt them… Am I capable of loving these people? This man, this woman who has hurt me, who has offended me? Am I capable of forgiving him/her? Let each of you answer in your heart. The love of Jesus allows us to see others as current or future members of the community of Jesus' friends; it inspires us to dialogue and helps us to listen to and understand one another. Love opens us to others and becomes the foundation of human relationships. It enables us to overcome the barriers of our weaknesses and prejudices. The love of Jesus within us builds bridges, teaches new paths, and sparks the dynamism of fraternity. May the Virgin Mary, through her maternal intercession, help us to receive from her Son Jesus the gift of his commandment and, through the Holy Spirit, the strength to put it into practice in our daily lives.

The Gospel for this Sunday

presented to children

(and to those who resemble them)

Interview with Bernadette Dumont

for Magnificat

(I highly recommend subscribing: here )

I give you a new commandment, says the Lord: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

◗ Is Jesus' last meal the "Last Supper" where he instituted the Eucharist?

Yes, and the Gospel according to Saint John reveals three essential dimensions of this farewell meal: the washing of the feet, the giving of the new commandment, and Jesus' testament. It thus complements the account given by the other evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who told us how, during this meal, Jesus gave himself to us, under the signs of bread and wine, so that we might receive him into ourselves and share in his life.

◗ When Jesus is about to entrust us with his testament, we sense that he is overwhelmed by emotion…

Oh yes! His friend Judas has just left to betray him… Jesus knows that he will soon enter into his Passion and die for us… So, in an outpouring of tenderness, he calls his disciples (including us) “Little children”, before making an extraordinary revelation to us: we are capable of loving one another, as he himself, our Lord and our God, has loved us!

◗ But even for the best of us, it is not possible to love like Jesus!

Yes, indeed! In one of his letters, Saint John tells us how this is possible: “If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). Therefore, when we love one another, not only does God come into us, but he also works with us so that we may be able to love as he has loved us! Thérèse of Lisieux wrote to Jesus: “Oh Lord! How I love your new commandment, because it assures me that your will is to love in me those whom you command me to love!”

Is that the main takeaway from this Sunday's Gospel?

Yes. We go to Mass to share in the life of Jesus, offered out of love for us. But let us never forget that if he wanted to offer us this extraordinary grace of receiving him within us, it is because he then wants, through us, to share in the life of all the brothers and sisters whom our Father places on the path of our lives. And this is what happens when we love others as Jesus loved us. Only then, with him in us and we in him, are our lives a living Eucharist to the glory of the Father.

◗ That is why Jesus warns us: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples"?

Watching the early Christians live, people marveled: "Look how they love one another!" they would say. And with good reason: they strove to love one another as Jesus loved us. And we, Christians of the 21st century, how do people recognize that we are disciples of Jesus?

Catechist and author of children's books, Bernadette Dumont is a mother and grandmother.

Better understanding the Gospel
with Marie-Noëlle Thabut

Better understanding the Gospel

with Marie-Noëlle Thabut

GOSPEL - according to Saint John 13:31-35

During the last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples

31 When Judas had left the upper room, Jesus declared: “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him.

32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him; and he will glorify him soon.

33 Little children, I am with you for only a short time longer.

34 I give you a new commandment: that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

WHOEVER HAS SEEN ME HAS SEEN THE FATHER

The opening sentences of this text are like a series of variations on the word "glory": "When Judas had gone out, Jesus declared, 'Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself.'" All of this seems a bit complicated, but in fact, it's a very Jewish way of speaking: it expresses the reciprocity of the relationship between the Father and the Son, or rather their fundamental union: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father," is also a phrase that Saint John recorded (14:8); or again, "I and the Father are one" (10:30). Here, to say that "the Son of Man is glorified, or that God is glorified in him," is to say that the Son is the reflection of the Father. Incidentally, we note once again the effort we must make to understand the vocabulary of Jesus and his contemporaries. Returning to the text: according to Jesus, it was precisely at the moment when Judas left in the night of betrayal that he, Jesus, fulfilled his vocation of being the reflection of the Father. But John didn't understand this immediately. Let's try to understand the apostles' state of mind at the time of Judas' departure and in the hours that followed: they initially witnessed, powerless, the Passion and death of Christ; they experienced this succession of events as a moment of horror; but afterward, John understood that it was in reality the hour of Jesus' glory: for it was then that the Son revealed the full extent of the Father's love. And because the Son, betrayed, abandoned by all, persecuted by all, persists, alone against all, in being nothing but love, kindness, and forgiveness, he reveals to the world the full extent of the Father's love, that is, to infinity, without limits. And then, and this is the second part of our text, those who contemplate this mystery of God's boundless love become capable of loving like him in turn. For Jesus clearly links the two things: he says, "Now I will reveal to the world the full extent of the Father's love," and "Now I give you a new commandment, to love in the same way." (The implication being, now you will be able to do so because you will draw from me my own love.) I'll dwell on this a little: in fact, the novelty is not the commandment to love; Jesus doesn't invent it. The commandment of love already exists in the teachings of the rabbis of his time. What is new is loving as he did, but not just in his way—that is, to the point of being ready to give one's life, rejecting all power, all domination, all violence. What is new is even more than that: truly loving as he did, that is, being completely guided by his Spirit. And then we understand the famous phrase, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Much more than a commandment, it is a statement of fact: if we are truly his disciples, it is his own Spirit who dictates our actions. To put it another way, God knows how difficult daily love is; it's almost a miracle! Well, if we succeed in this in our Christian communities, the world will be forced to acknowledge the obvious truth that the Spirit of Christ is at work within us!

THE SPIRIT OF LOVE Dwells Within Us

We are therefore first invited to an act of faith! To believe that his Spirit of love dwells within us, that his resources of love reside within us: that we now possess unsuspected capacities for love, because they are his… and then it becomes possible for us to love “like” him because it is his Spirit that acts within us. Isn’t all this a little too good to be true? We know from experience that loving those around us is not always easy: there are people with whom it comes naturally, as they say; there are others with whom it is very difficult… not to mention those for whom we feel a real aversion… or worse still, those who have acted toward us in an unforgivable way. Jesus certainly knows all this when he gives this commandment to his disciples; but we must not confuse love and sensitivity: Jesus has just shown through his actions the kind of love with which we should love one another; let us remember the context: this takes place during his last supper with his disciples. Jesus began by washing their feet, to their great astonishment: he, the Lord and Master, became their servant. And he concluded by saying, “I have given you an example; do to me what I have done for you.” So this is what it means to love “as” he loved us… and, after all, if we think about it, it is possible to serve one another, even those for whom we feel no attraction. Now, our fidelity to this commandment is vital, he tells us, since it is on this that our communities will be judged: according to him, the most important thing is not the quality of our speeches, our theology, or our knowledge, nor even the beauty of our ceremonies; it is the quality of the love we offer one another… (Yet it is rare that anyone thinks of judging the history of the Church on this criterion). Meanwhile, we must never forget Jesus' cry of victory on the last night: "Now the Son of Man is glorified (that is, revealed as God), and God is glorified in him." In Jesus, humanity is brought into the glory of God, into the presence of God, into the life of God, through the event of his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. And because they are now brought into the glory of God, the disciples of Jesus Christ can live their lives under the sign of love… since God is love and his presence now shines through them. Perhaps all it takes is to believe this to let it work within us.