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Each Person’s Dignity, Each Person’s Pride

Today’s gospel cuts right down to the crux of what Jesus asked us to do, and for me it is at once both simple and complex. Scripture scholar Fr. Dennis Hamm, sj called it “the deepest form of evangelization,” and is our Christian mission flowing out of Easter.

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. (John 13:34-35)

In other words non-Christians, or those on the “outside” should be able to look at us, see how we treat one another, how we interact with others and know right away there is something unique about us, that must be divinely inspired. Do you remember the song, “They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love,” from the years when folk choirs were popular? It’s a catchy tune and I have sung it many times in various choirs over the years. I have sung it in United, Anglican, and Baptist churches when I have attended with friends or for special occasions. This song was written in 1966 by a Catholic priest named Peter Scholtes, from the South Side of Chicago, one year after the closing of the Second Vatican Council. Fr. Scholtes wrote it because he could not find a suitable song to accompany a series of ecumenical and interracial youth events in his parish. The song grew in popularity with the Civil Rights movement in the United States and continued to be used in ecumenical settings and beyond, fostering a sense of unity and shared Christian identity among various denominations. 

I was not around in 1966 but I have heard things could be dicey and it was not a time of harmony and goodwill for interfaith and race relations. That a Christian event was even labelled “interracial” should be jarring to us in 2025. My mother married my father, a Protestant in 1967, a time when such a thing brought shock and scandal to rural Nova Scotia.

When I said Jesus’ instruction to love one another was simple I meant it is easy for me to say and easy for me to assume I am doing exactly this, but complexities arise when I fall short, which happens. Sometimes I fall short because of my blind spots and self-centredness, but if I am honest there are also times I fall short because I do not want to do the work involved. I do not want to change. I resist the call to be transformed. I also know there are times when I am successful in doing this in ways particular to myself. I can be shy (but not always), and I am told I have an introverted personality so while you may not see me gushing platitudes, my love might be seen through my openness to others, especially those different from me and those on the margins.   

What would Jesus think if he were to visit our churches incognito today? Would he recognize us? Would he recognize me? Maybe most importantly, Would I recognize him?

I ask myself these questions often and while I not know the answer, they can help keep me focused on the big picture. What I do know is that I am as moved today by the lyrics of Fr. Scholtes’s song as I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. It has been and continues to be central to connecting my life and faith together.

We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we’ll guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yeah, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

~Trevor Droesbeck