The Love Came First
At the Regina Caeli this morning, Pope Leo XIV said God does not love us because we keep the commandments. The Holy Spirit is given before we deserve it.
Dear friends,
Letters from Leo is publishing a series of scripture reflections through the Easter season, drawing on the teachings of Pope Leo XIV and the daily readings of the Church.
These reflections are “quieter” than my usual essays. They are prayers as much as arguments — meditations on what the lectionary asks of us in the weeks between Easter and Pentecost. The aim is the same as everything else I do here: to make the Gospel inescapable in ordinary life.
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“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” — John 14:15–17
Today’s Gospel sounds like a contract. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Most of us read that line the way we read a job description — a list of conditions for the affection of someone in charge. Love arrives in proportion to what we earn.
At the Regina Caeli this morning, Pope Leo XIV said this is the wrong way to hear it. “God’s love is the basis for our righteousness,” he told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square. The commandments do not buy God’s love. They are what becomes of a life that knows itself already loved.
I needed to hear that today. I too often operate as if the love of God is something I have to top up — like a parking meter that runs out if I miss my prayers, lose my temper with those I love, or snap at someone on a deadline. I keep waking up trying to earn what has already been given.
Pope Leo called this a misconception. The honest word is amnesia. We have forgotten that the love came first.
Watch what the first reading is doing.
