5th Sunday of Easter, Year C

“I give you a new commandment," Jesus says in today's Gospel, "love one another.” In his commentary on St. John's Gospel, St. Cyril of Alexandria comments:

Christ Pantokrator (St. Catherine's, 6th c.)

But how, we might ask, could he call this commandment new? ... Do you not see what is new in Christ's love for us? The law commanded people to love their brothers and sisters as they love themselves, but our Lord Jesus Christ loved us more than himself. 

He who was one in nature with God the Father and his equal would not have descended to our lowly estate, nor endured in his flesh such a better death for us, not submitted to the blows given him by his enemies, to the shame, the derision, and all the other sufferings that could not possibly be enumerated; nor, being rich, would he have become poor, had he not loved us far more than himself. 

It was indeed something new for love to go as far as that!