In the Boston Globe a report was written about Pope John Paul’s 83^rd birthday. In the presence of Polish people, the Pope said that his final day of judgment was very near.

That touched me very deeply. What will our final day of judgment be like?

Could it be that we will find out on that day what the Apostle John in the second reading tells us today: that we are so deeply loved by God and in the Gospel: that Jesus tells us to remain in that love?

Could it be that the final judgment will be all about God loving us and what we did with that love instead of what we did on our own? Yes, it is God who chose us to be his friends. He call us to bear his fruit not our own.

Our final judgment will be about how we allowed God to work in us. Our loving others will be the sharing of what God gave to us as a freely given gift.

Why are we called Christian? We are called Christian because we are to become more like Christ. We cannot do that on our own. We can only become like Christ if we allow Christ to come into us and work in us.

St. Paul tells us that I can speak eloquently, I can give my body to be burned, I can have faith enough to move mountains, I can give all that I have to the poor but if I don’t have love, I am nothing. If I don’t have Christ, I do not have love. Christ is love.

Love one another as I have loved you, Jesus says in the Gospel today. How did Jesus love us? By giving himself to us. When we give Christ to one another, we are loving one another as Christ has loved us.