They Will Know You Are My Disciple

During the Last Supper, Our Lord washes the feet of His Apostles and then tells them to go and do to others what He has just done to and for them. He also tells them, as we hear in today's Gospel, to love one another as He has loved them. Jesus proceeds in telling them that people will know that they are His disciples by how they love one another.
This was the line in the Gospel passage that has stuck with me since I heard it and reread it. It all goes back to our Baptism. On that day I became His, and since that day all He has asked me to do, more than anything else is to love; to love Him and love those He puts on my path in this life. It sounds simple enough, but it isn't always easy.
I have often wondered, especially since my return to my faith, will those who meet me know that I have chosen to follow Christ? Does my life now look any different than it did eight years ago? I think it does; I hope it does.
What really strikes me about this line in today's Gospel is that Jesus really simplifies things in commanding us to love. I am the one who often complicates them. He doesn't say they will know you are my disciple by how you pray, by how many holy images are in your home, or by how many parish activities or committees you are involved in. All of those things I am sure He finds wonderful so long as they are accompanied by love.
St Paul also gives a very beautiful explanation of what and how to love in his letter to the Corinthians:

If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.  And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.  And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.  Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up; Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil. (1Cor. 13:1~5)

This quote from Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta sums up for me the essence of what living Jesus' commandment of love truly is.

To me Jesus is the Life I want to live, the Light I want to reflect, the Way to the Father, the Love I want to express, the joy I want to share, the Peace I want to sow around me. Jesus is everything to me.

If Jesus truly is everything to me, then I will want to love as He has commanded me to love and people will surely know that I am His disciple.