What a Life! for July 11-15, 2007

Our Christian faith is rather simple. Jesus summarizes what he expects of us, “Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” All the other rules are meant to help us carry out these two great commandments. When any other rules or laws seem to become more important than love of God, neighbor and self, always follow the law of love.

If we believe that God is the source of everything – this entire universe, our lives, all reality as we know it, – doesn’t it make sense that we should seek to love God with all our heart and do God’s will in every possible way? St. John tells us that the love of God consists in this: God loved us before we had a chance to merit it or deserve it. God’s gift of love was given unconditionally.

That doesn’t mean we can say, “Well, I can sin as much as I want because I know God will still love me and forgive me.” If someone close to us loves us with all our faults and imperfections, would we say, “Well, I can be as selfish as I want and hurt them, because I know they love me so much that they will forgive me?” I don’t think so.

When someone loves us that much, we should be moved to love them in return and to try in every way possible to please them and not disappoint them. That is the way it is with God. If we believe that God’s love for us is unconditional, that should motivate us to try to please God in everything we do and not sin or offend the one who loves us the most.

“To love” means to want what is best for the other. We identify with the struggles of other people and become one with them. For example, we feel for a fellow parishioner who has just been diagnosed with cancer. We sense her fear of an uncertain future and the dread of the surgeries she might have to face or all the treatments she might have to endure. We identify with a child in Iraq, huddled in the corner of his house, terrified by all the bombings, the gun shots and shouting of the soldiers. We feel the child’s pain when a bomb goes off in the next room and his mother is blown to pieces. We also share our neighbor’s joys when we rejoice with Richard whose child has just graduated with honors.

To love our neighbor as ourselves means to be in solidarity with others, to be one with them in their sufferings and in their joys. In his book The Inner Voice of Love, Henri Nouwen says, “Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply. You might be afraid of the pain that deep love can cause. When those you love deeply reject you, leave you or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply. The pain that comes from deep love makes your love ever more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root and grow into a strong plant. Every time you experience the pain of rejection, absence or death, you are faced with a choice. You can become bitter and decide not to love again, or you can stand straight in your pain and let the soil on which you stand become richer and more able to give life to new seeds. The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you can let your heart grow wider and deeper.”

Good advice for lovers!