THE NEW COMMANDMENT

                             We are familiar with the fourteen stations of the 'way of the cross'. Pictures of each station are fixed on the walls of several churches. Some churches have the stations arranged on the sides of a passage, so that the prayers can be held in a procession outside the church. Recently a fifteenth station, the resurrection of Jesus has been added in some churches for a more meaningful journey with Jesus whose path did not end in the tomb.

                             A rich old lady was found to recite the prayers of the 'way of the cross' every day after the Morning Mass in a church. The Vicar was happy to see this pious routine. But once he noticed that the lady was skipping the eighth station - where Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem. She was found to skip this station everyday. He asked her about this. Her reply was emphatic. "Who will kneel before that picture? It was donated by that evil woman." The Vicar enquired and found that at the time of construction of the church, a very poor lady had paid the cost of the picture of station-8. She could not offer more as she was very poor. It was then that the rich lady came to donate money for the whole series of fourteen pictures. She could pay for only thirteen pictures as the poor lady had already paid for the eighth picture. That was the reason behind the enmity and the skip of a station.

                             Similar rivalry and shows of ego are common even among believers. Jesus taught us to love others, even our enemies. Jesus said, "And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples"{John 13: 34, 35}. St. John advised, "If someone says he loves God, but hates his brother, he is a liar. For he cannot love God, whom he has not seen, if he does not love his brother, whom he has seen"{1 John 4: 20, 21}.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 By Dr. Babu Philip, Professor, Cochin University of Science & Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi-682016, Kerala, India.
This is Story No. 44 in this site. Please click ‘Older Post’ at the bottom of this page to read previous stories and click 'Newer Post' at the bottom of this page to read newer stories in this site. Please click on a word in the 'Story Themes' to read stories on that theme.