By this shall they know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love;

. (John 13:34-35.)

It seems that between these two words the "Supper of Love" is performed,

, as the Eucharist will be called in the first communities, perhaps by the very name that John overheard in the heart of the Lord. [810]

The pearls of the words of Jesus are dissolved in the wine of John; but perhaps there are those that lie at the bottom of the bowl undissolved. It seems that the "new commandment" of love is one of them.

"Love thy neighbor as thyself" (Lev. 19:18) is an ancient commandment, but vain, which has become a dead "law," the very one by which the Lover is crucified. Man cannot love by himself: it is natural for people, as well as for all living creatures, not to love each other, but to hate each other in the struggle for life. To people, no man could say, "Love," except one Man, Jesus, because He alone loved; He is Love itself; there was no love before Him, and there will be no love without Him.

Ye can do nothing without Me (John 15:5).

least of all – to love. It is the commandment of His love that is "new" in that people can love only in Him and through Him. His love is unique, just as He Himself is the One.

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The commandment of His love is also "new" in that it resurrects – conquers death physically. Death is decomposition, separation of living organic cells, their mutual repulsion is hatred; their union, mutual attraction – love: this is why the power of love resurrects – conquers death not only spiritually, but also physically.

We overcome all things by the power of Him who loved us.

… For neither death nor life... shall not separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:37-39),

only in Him alone, the only one. He loves and conquers death-hatred, resurrects – He alone.

For I live, and you will live. (John 14:19). I am the seven, the resurrection and the life... He who believes in Me will never die. (John 11:25-26.)

Jesus accumulates the power of resurrection love in his disciples, as a cloud accumulates thunderstorm power for lightning.

"Love is stronger than death" – it is said about conjugal, carnal love only figuratively and deceptively: that love, the old one, does not conquer death physically, but itself gives birth to death: only this new, spiritual-carnal, brotherly-conjugal love (of Christ the Bridegroom to the Church the Bride) conquers it, kills it. In that love, the lover is outside the body of the beloved: he wants to devour him, to devour him with his fire, but he cannot; Only in this love is it inside.

Here, in the Eucharist, the Lover enters the beloved flesh into flesh, blood into blood. By the flame of love He who burns and is burned, Who is poisonous and he who walks is one; they live together, die together, and are resurrected together.

He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:54.)

The denser, the bloodier, the coarser and more substantial, but in fact the more subtle and spiritual; the closer we understand the Eucharist to the Church's dogma-experience of transubstantiation (transsubstatio), the more faithful, not only religiously, but also historically authentic.