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From: 1 John 4:11-16

God is Love. Brotherly Love, the Mark of Christians

[11] Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
[12] No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in
us and his love is perfected in us.

[13] By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has
given us of his own Spirit. [14] And we have seen and testify that the
Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. [15] Whoever
confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in
God. [16] So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love,
and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Commentary:

11-12. The Apostle underlines here the theological basis of brotherly
love: the love which God has shown us by the incarnation and redemptive
death of his Son, places us in his debt: we have to respond in kind; so
we "ought" to love our neighbor with the kind of gratitude and
disinterest that God showed by taking the initiative in loving us.

Moreover, by loving one another we are in communion with God. The
deepest desire of the human heart, which is to see and to possess God,
cannot be satisfied in this life, because "no man has ever seen God"
(v. 12); our neighbor, on the other hand, we do see. So, in this life,
the way to be in communion with God is by brotherly love. "Love of God
is the first thing in the order of commands", St Augustine explains,
"and love of neighbor is the first thing in the order of practice
[...]. You, who do not yet see God, will, by loving your neighbor,
merit to see him. Love of neighbor cleanses our eyes to see God, as
John clearly says, If you do not love your neighbor, whom you see, how
can you love God, whom you do not see (cf. 1 Jn 4:20)" ("In Ioann.
Evang.", 17, 8).

13. Having the gift of the Holy Spirit is the sure sign of being in
communion with God. Since the Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and
of the Son, his presence in the soul in grace is necessarily something
dynamic, that is, it moves the person to keep all the commandments (cf.
3:24), particularly that of brotherly love. This interior impulse shows
that the third Person of the Blessed Trinity is at work within us; it
is a sign of union with God.

The Holy Spirit's action on the soul is a marvelous and deep mystery.
"This breathing of the Holy Spirit in the soul," says St John of the
Cross, "whereby God transforms it into himself, is so sublime and
delicate and profound a delight to it that it cannot be described by
mortal tongue, nor can human understanding, as such, attain to any
conception of it" ("Spiritual Canticle", stanza 39).

14-15. Once more (cf. v. 1:4) St John vividly reminds his readers that
he and the other Apostles have seen with their own eyes the Son of God,
made man out of love for us. They were eyewitnesses of his redemptive
life and death. And in the Son, sent by the Father as Savior of the
world, the unfathomable mystery of God is revealed--that his very being
is Love.

"It is 'God, who is rich in mercy' (Eph 2:4) whom Jesus Christ has
revealed to us as Father: it is his very Son who, in himself, has
manifested him and made him known to us (cf. Jn 1:18; Heb 1:1f)" (John
Paul II, "Dives In Misericordia", 1).

16. "Knowing" and "believing" are not theoretical knowledge but
intimate, experienced attachment (cf. notes on 2:3-6; 4:1-6; Jn 6:69;
17:8). Therefore when St John says that they knew and believed "the
love God has for us" he is not referring to an abstract truth but to
the historical fact of the incarnation and death of Christ (v. 14), the
supreme manifestation of the Father's love.

"He who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him": St Thomas
Aquinas explains "that in some way the loved one is to be found in the
lover. And so, he who loves God in some way possesses him, as St John
says (1 Jn 4:16) [...]. Also, it is a property of love that the lover
becomes transformed into the loved one; so, if we love vile and
perishable things, we become vile and perishable, like those who
'became detestable like the things they loved" (Hos 9:10). Whereas, if
we love God, we are made divine, for the Apostle says, 'He who is
united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him' (1 Cor 6:17)" ("In Duo
Praecepta", prol., 3).

Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.

From: John 17:11b-19

The Priestly Prayer of Jesus (Continuation)

(Jesus lifted his eyes to heaven and said, ) [11b] "Holy Father, keep them in
thy name, which thou has given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
[12] While I was with them, I kept them in thy name, which thou hast given
me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition,
that the scripture might be fulfilled. [13] But now I am coming to thee;
and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled
in themselves. [14] I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them
because they are not of the world. [15] I do not pray that thou shouldst
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil
one. [16] They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. [17]
Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth. [18] As thou didst send me
into the world, so I have sent them into the world. [19] And for their sake
I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.

Commentary:

11-19. Jesus now asks the Father to give his disciples four
things--unity, perseverance, joy and holiness. By praying him to keep
them in his name (v. 11) he is asking for their perseverance in the
teaching he has given them (cf. v. 6) and in communion with him. An
immediate consequence of this perseverance is unity: "that they may be
one, even as we are one"; this unity which he asks for his disciples is
a reflection of the unity of the three divine Persons.

He also prays that none of them should be lost, that the Father should
guard and protect them, just as he himself protected them while he was
still with them. Thirdly, as a result of their union with God and
perseverance they will share in the joy of Christ (v. 13): in this
life, the more we know God and the more closely we are joined to him,
the happier will we be; in eternal life our joy will be complete,
because our knowledge and love of God will have reached its climax.

Finally, he prays for those who, though living in the world, are not of
the world, that they may be truly holy and carry out the mission he has
entrusted to them, just as he did the work his Father gave him to do.

12. "That the scripture might be fulfilled": this is an allusion to
what he said to the Apostles a little earlier (Jn 13:18) by directly
quoting Scripture: "He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me"
(Ps 41:10). Jesus makes these references to Judas' treachery in order
to strengthen the Apostles' faith by showing that he knew everything in
advance and that the Scriptures had already foretold what would happen.

However, Judas went astray through his own fault and not because God
arranged things that way; his treachery had been taking shape little by
little, through his petty infidelities, and despite our Lord helping
him to repent and get back on the right rode (cf. note on Jn 13:21-32);
Judas did not respond to this grace and was responsible for his own
downfall. God, who sees the future, predicted the treachery of Judas
in the Scripture; Christ, being God, knew that Judas would betray him
and it is with immense sorrow that he now tells the Apostles.

14-16. In Sacred Scripture "world" has a number of meanings. First, it
means the whole of creation (Gen 1:1ff) and, within creation, mankind,
which God loves most tenderly (Prov 8:31). This is the meaning
intended here when our Lord says, "I do not pray that thou shouldst
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the
evil one" (v. 15). "I have taught this constantly using words from
holy Scripture. The world is not evil, because it has come from God's
hands, because it is his creation, because Yahweh looked upon it and
saw that it was good (cf. Gen 1:7ff). We ourselves, mankind, make it
evil and ugly with our sins and infidelities. Have no doubt: any kind
of evasion from the honest realities of daily life is for you, men and
women of the world, something opposed to the will of God" ([St] J. Escriva,
"Conversations", 114).

In the second place, "world" refers to the things of this world, which
do not last and which can be at odds with the things of the spirit (cf.
Mt 16:26).

Finally, because evil men have been enslaved by sin and by the devil,
"the ruler of the world" (Jn 12:31; 16:11), the "world" sometimes
means God's enemy, something opposed to Christ and his followers (Jn
1:10). In this sense the "world" is evil, and therefore Jesus is not
of the world, nor are his disciples (v. 16). It is also this
pejorative meaning which is used by traditional teaching which
describes the world, the flesh and the devil as enemies of the soul
against which one has to be forever vigilant. "The world, the flesh
and the devil are a band of adventurers who take advantage of the
weakness of that savage you bear within you, and want you to hand over
to them, in exchange for the glittering tinsel of a pleasure--which is
worth nothing--the pure gold and the pearls and the diamonds and rubies
drenched in the life-blood of your God-Redeemer, which are the price
and the treasure of your eternity" ([St] J. Escriva, "The Way", 708).

17-19. Jesus prays for the holiness of his disciples. God alone is the
Holy One; in his holiness people and things share. "Sanctifying" has
to do with consecrating and dedicating something to God, excluding it
from being used for profane purposes; thus God says to Jeremiah:
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I
consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations" (Jer 1:5).
If something is to be consecrated to God it must be perfect, that is,
holy. Hence, a consecrated person needs to have moral sanctity, needs
to be practising the moral virtues. Our Lord here asks for both things
for his disciples, because they need them if they are to fulfill their
supernatural mission in the world.

"For their sake I consecrate myself": these words mean that Jesus
Christ, who has been burdened with the sins of men, consecrates himself
to the Father through his sacrifice on the Cross. By this are all
Christians sanctified: "So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in
order to sanctify the people through his own blood" (Heb 13:12). So,
after Christ's death, men have been made sons of God by Baptism,
sharers in the divine nature and enabled to attain the holiness to
which they have been called (cf. Vatican II, "Lumen Gentium", 40).