Acts of the Apostles 10:25-26.34-35.44-48.
When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and, falling at his feet, paid him homage.
Peter, however, raised him up, saying, "Get up. I myself am also a human being."
Then Peter proceeded to speak and said, "In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.
While Peter was still speaking these things, the holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word.
The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were astounded that the gift of the holy Spirit should have been poured out on the Gentiles also,
for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God. Then Peter responded,
"Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the holy Spirit even as we have?"
He ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Psalms 98(97):1.2-3ab.3cd-4.
Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
His right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
The LORD has made his salvation known:
in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
toward the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
break into song; sing praise.
First Letter of John 4:7-10.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.
In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 15:9-17.
Jesus said to his disciples: "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete."
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another."
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Live on in my love.”
The Lord Jesus affirms that he is giving his disciples a new commandment: that of mutual love… Did this commandment not already exist in the Old Law, since it is written: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18)? So why does the Lord call "new" a commandment that was so obviously old? Is it a new commandment because, in stripping us of the old man, he clothes us with the new one (Eph 4:24)? Certainly, the person who listens to this commandment, or rather, who obeys it, is not renewed by just any love but by the love that the Lord carefully distinguishes from purely natural love, when he says, “as I have loved you.” … Christ gave us the new commandment to love one another as he has loved us. This is the love that renews us, that makes us into new persons, heirs to the new covenant, singers of the “new song” (Ps 96:1).
Dearly beloved, this love renewed even the righteous ones of past times, the patriarchs and the prophets, just as it later renewed the holy apostles. It is the love that now renews the pagan nations. This love raises up and gathers together a new people from the entire human race scattered over the whole earth, the body of the new Spouse of the Son of God.
