The affirmation that God is love, and that his will coincides with love, or in other words, with loving one’s neighbor, is confirmed not only by Jesus’ teachings but also by the psychological experience of interpersonal relationships. Only relationships that are not violent or controlling, but instead recognize and respect the other’s “person” as a transcendent being are relationships that “love the other as oneself.” Not only does my love acknowledge the other person as a being who is distinct from me, equal to me, and transcendent like me, but this same love also affirms my own “existence.”

Only love takes into account our diversity (or distinction) while at the same time, safeguarding our equality, and therefore making unity possible.

The novelty of the culture brought by Jesus lies precisely in the fact that he revolutionized interpersonal relationships. Before his coming, relationships among people were governed by family ties, social class, particular interests, or merely external goals. With Jesus, all these motivations become less important because persons become aware that they have an intrinsic transcendent value, in fact, that they represent God himself for others: “Just as you did to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40)

The psychological relevance of this dynamic is obvious. For example, if we take it to its extreme consequences, then I am most fully a person when I freely and consciously affirm the other person even at the cost of my own life. This dynamic is expressed by Jesus in these words: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (Jn 15:13)

Expressed in another way: no one affirms his own self, is so truly a person, as does the one who denies self and thus transcends self in order to save the transcendence of the other (and we have a luminous examples in Jesus, Father Maximilian Kolbe, Mother Teresa…) This is the most genuine “humanism” imaginable and achievable.

Chiara Lubich

(Essential Writings pp. 226-227)