A New Song
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May 18, 2019“I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”
(Jn 13:34-5)
From St Augustine:
“If all the earth is singing a new song, it is being built up even as it sings, for to sing is to build—provided, that is, that its song is not the old one. The desires of the flesh sing an old song, but the charity of God sings a song that is new. If your song springs from earthly lust, you are singing an old tune; and even if the words in your mouth are those of a new song, praise is unseemly in the mouth of a sinner. It is better to be a new person and keep quiet than to sing that old ditty, because if you are new in yourself, then even if you remain silent and human ears catch no sound from you, your heart is not silent. The new song your heart is singing reaches the ears of God who made you a new person. You love, and you are silent, but your love is itself a voice that sings to God; your love itself is the new song. Do you want proof of this? The Lord tells us, “A new commandment I give you: that you love one another.”
(Exposition of Psalm 95)
This new commandment is not something heavy, burdensome, guilt-ridden. “Love – or else!” Let the word ‘love’ never become a stick with which to beat ourselves, or one another. Love is a song in the heart, a song of joy which flows into us from God and through us to others. It is gift: the new person we have become in Christ. Do I feel like such a new person? Not every day. But there are moments when I am surprised by an outpouring of undeserved tenderness like evening sunlight slanting through the windows of my life. I must treasure such moments in my memory, so that I can draw them forth at times of discouragement. Sing a new song to the Lord: let love flow from its center. We are made for this!
