Jesus is seated at table with friends. It is his last supper before leaving this world, a most solemn moment in which to share his last will, almost a testament: “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34). Down through the centuries, this will be the distinguishing mark of the disciples. By this mark everyone would recognize them!
 It was like this right from the beginning. The believers in the first community in Jerusalem were so well-liked, “enjoying favor with all the people” because of their unity, that “every day” new people “were added to their number.” (See Acts 2:47; 4:32; 5:13.)
Even a few years later Tertullian, one of the first Christian writers, reported in his Apology what was said about the Christians: “Look at how they love one other, and how they are ready to give their lives for one another” (39:7). This was the fulfillment of what Jesus said:

«This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another»

Mutual love is therefore the “attire that ordinary Christians, old and young, men and women, married or not, adults and children, sick or healthy, can wear in order to shout out always and everywhere with their own lives the One they believe in, the One they want to love”.
In that unity, born from mutual love among the disciples of Jesus, there is a kind of mirror that makes visible the God whom he revealed as Love—the Church is the icon of the Trinity.
Today more than ever, this is the way to proclaim the Gospel message. A society often confused by too many messages seeks witnesses rather than teachers, it wants models rather than preachers. It is more easily engaged if it sees a Gospel that is lived out, that is able to create relationships, that is characterized by brotherhood and by love.

«This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another»

How then should we live this Word of Life? By keeping mutual love alive among us and forming “living cells” everywhere.
Chiara Lubich said, “If a city were set alight at various points… by the fire that Jesus brought on earth, and this fire, through the goodwill of the people who lived there, managed to resist the ice of the world, we would soon have the city aflame with the love of God. The fire that Jesus brought to earth is himself. It is charity: that love which not only binds the soul to God, but also souls to one another.
“Two or more people fused in the name of Christ—people who are not afraid or ashamed to declare explicitly to one another their desire to love God, but who actually make this unity in Christ their Ideal—are a divine power in the world.
“And in every city these souls could spring up in families: father and mother, son and father, mother and mother-in-law. They could meet in parishes, in associations, in social bodies, in schools, in offices, everywhere.
“It is not necessary for them to be saints already, or Jesus would have said so. It is enough for them to be united in the name of Christ and to never go back on this unity. Naturally, they will not remain two or three for very long, for charity spreads of itself and grows by enormous proportions.
“Every small cell, set alight by God in any point of the earth, will necessarily spread, and Providence will distribute these flames, these souls on fire, wherever it thinks fit, so that the world in many places may be restored to the warmth of the love of God, and hope again”.

By Fabio Ciardi and Gabriella Fallacara