The
Power of Love
Difference Between Liking and Loving
Love like liberty and power can be misused. The misuse stems even from the way the verb "to love" is used. We use the word so casually and without thought that its true meaning has been lost. Love does not mean to have, to own, or to possess; it is, however, to be had, to be owned, and to be possessed. It is not the using of another for the sake of oneself, but giving oneself in order to help another. No greater love exists than that which flows from the endless fountain which is God, and which manifested itself in the person of Jesus Christ.
God loves everyone, not because everyone is lovable - but because He puts some of His own love into each and every person. As we prepare for the coming of our Lord during this Advent, let us reflect on the mystery of God's unending love for his creation and how that love should be reflected through us - each one of us individually. This reflection of God's Love through us is what I will be sharing with you today. Better understanding the mystery of love is essential for everyone who has taken to heart the Gospel of our Lord, for love is the reason why Jesus humbled himself and incarnated, taking upon himself our own broken humanity, that we might enter the Glory of the Kingdom He so fervently proclaimed. Without true love, fulfilling the Gospel that Jesus preached and died for is impossible.
Liking everyone is not easy - in fact it becomes almost impossible for the human being - but it is possible to love everyone. How? How is this possible? There is a difference between liking and loving: Liking is instinctive, emotional, organic, physiological, a sensible reaction over which sometimes we have as little control as over the grumbling of our stomach. (You can't convince a child that he/she should like spinach) Loving is different. Love doesn't inhabit in the glands, but in our will. It makes its home in the intimate part of our being that is subject to moral command, and unlike liking is not a bodily reaction. Where liking is reciprocal, loving is not. We all like people who like us - in fact we call them our friends. But a mother can love her son beyond any circumstance even when that son doesn't return the affection. In the same way, God loves us even when we turn away from Him and reject His graces.
The incarnation is a time that marks a new beginning in the history of creation. A time when God Himself became like us so that we could understand His undying love. It was the beginning of a new time when all men were to see in each other the image of God. So true is this that when asked which was the greatest commandment, Jesus responded by placing the love of one another alongside the love of God. And this command was "love thy neighbor NOT like thy neighbor". It's difficult to like people who step on our toes or make ill comments about us or willfully do us harm, but it is possible to love them. When we do a good deed for someone we dislike, love is given an opportunity to grow within our heart. And love demands that we do good deeds! The command to love thy neighbor is followed by the command to "do good". This is not easy because our feelings are usually contrary to the command, but doing the good deeds that are commanded by love softens our heart so that room is made for love to flourish. When love is not spontaneous, it begins only as a duty, but just as we learn to write by writing, to speak by speaking and to be courteous by practicing kindliness, so we learn to love by loving.
In order to better understand this concept of Loving, let us closer examine the mystery of "love thy neighbor as thyself". First of all, who is my neighbor? Is it the person who borrows sugar or asks me to watch over their house while they're out on vacation? Certainly that's a neighbor. But neighbor is also anyone who is in need - ANYONE! And this includes people we don't like, even our enemy. The question, then should not be who is my neighbor? But rather how am I someone else's neighbor? When we look at the question in this way, it becomes clear that someone else's needs become our own because at any moment, we can be in need ourselves. We can become ill or lose our job or suffer a death in the family. We need to become sensitive to the way others see us. And, how do others see us? Do others see us as a neighbor or as an enemy? Do we see ourselves the same way as others see us? How do others Love us or hate us? And, do we love or hate ourselves in the same way? Only after meditating on this, can we begin to understand the mystery of love thy neighbor.
So, how do I love myself? Do I love myself always or only at certain moments? Do I love myself when I do something wrong or embarrassing, or when I steal, or lie, or destroy my neighbor's reputation? On the other hand, do I not love myself when I visit the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked or comfort the afflicted? By analyzing this comparison, it becomes clear that I love myself when I do what is good, and I hate myself when I do what is wrong. Likewise, there will be things in my neighbor, which I love, and other things, which I will not love, and if I look closely enough, these are the same things that I love or hate in myself. From this then we can say I will love the sinner, but hate the sin; love the thief but hate the robbery. This is an extremely difficult thing to do, and that is why when it comes to loving those who are not very likable, it takes the love of God to give us inspiration. We need to do what God does with us, who are not very lovable: He puts His love in us and thus finds us very lovable.
How can we define this love that flows from God? Where we in the English language have only one word for love, the Greeks had three different words and used them accordingly. The first of these was "Eros" which is generally what is meant by sex-love; it’s biological, glandular, instinctive and emotional. This type of love does not distinguish between the pleasure and the person. The second word the Greeks used was "philia" which is the kind of love that exists both in friendship and in marriage. Where as in Eros, the other person is replaceable; in philia the other person is irreplaceable. The third Greek word for love was not often used in classical Greek literature. This word described a love so noble and divine that Christianity alone made it popular - "AGAPE". The Greeks rarely, if ever, used the word agape because of Plato's argument that there could be no real love between God and man - since the gods were perfect, they desired nothing. However, when God sent His only Son to be born of the Virgin Mary and offer Himself on Calvary to redeem humanity, the divine love between God and man was born. That love can only be expressed by the word "agape". It's interesting to note that the word "Eros" is not found in the New Testament; the word "philia" is found only forty five times, but the word "agape" is found 320 times.
Love cannot be hurried. And, love requires 3 elements: 1st the Lover; 2nd the Beloved; and 3rd the mysterious bond that unites both, which is in effect Love itself. The human love that expresses itself in this manner (with these 3 elements) is a reflection of Divine Love. To love in this way, or better still, to be the true reflection of Divine Love, we must be considerate of others; we must avoid the carnal aggressiveness that devours others, like a lion devours its prey. It means that we must be attentive and listen to others, putting oneself in their place - in their frame of mind, rather than critically analyzing what they have to say. Imposing our own thoughts or frame of mind on others when we counsel them; rushing through a consultation or meeting; and even the priest that speeds-up confession or the celebration of Mass has failed at true love. To love anyone is to give everything, our talent, our time, and our money, all that we have. In essence, it is to become identified with the soul in crisis. God so loved humanity that His love - Divine Love - identified with us in such a way that He became one with us in the incarnation and birth through the Virgin Mary.
For love to grow it's necessary for us to overcome our human tendency to despise all that is weak. We despise the weak who have succumb to drugs and alcohol; we despise the men and women who, because of human weakness, have betrayed their union with another; we despise the weak at heart or those who are less likely to succeed in the temporal world. In essence, we associate weakness with failure - and we hate failures. Yet love is patient, tolerant and benevolent. It must go beyond the mere circle of our friends and family - not only to those who we consider "good" but even to those we consider foolish, boring, mean, envious, riffraff, etc. To accomplish this requires a love that can see beyond what our eyes see - a love that sees in every person an immortal soul that is more precious to our Lord than all the universe.
This doesn't mean that we should love the weakness in others, the contrary is true. Just as we love the sinner and hate the sin, so we love the weak and bear their infirmities while despising the weakness. Throughout Jesus' public life, his unending Divine Love is evident in everyone whose life He touches. Two of His greatest converts were made when He was tired, yet being tired He never hurried. Several times the Gospels tell of how He had no time to eat, clearly demonstrating that He never hurried any souls through their problems in order to fit His life into a routine as we often do. The only time that Jesus asked that anything be done in a hurry was His betrayal by Judas. If we compare the works of love done by God to the betrayal done by Judas, then we must assume that things done in a hurry and impatiently, especially works of supposed love, are actually works of evil.
True love is itself a mystery. As in all mysteries, there are two sides to love: one material and the other spiritual; one is visible and seen, the other invisible or unseen. Just as words and actions, such as a handshake, are visible signs with unseen meanings, so too is love. An engagement ring is an expression of love; beyond its material value there is the invisible and unseen meaning of love. Love is very much like the sunlight that bathes the trees of a forest. The light flows from the sun through the trees and into the earth; centuries later these trees are dug up as coal. When this coal is burned, it returns the light to the sun from where it came. So too the human heart after burying love within, later returns that love to the God from whom it came. Love is also like the veil a bride wears on her wedding day. The veil is a sign that all that the bride is has not been disclosed, that there are mysteries not yet sounded and treasures not yet discovered.
Just as these things are signs of what is unseen, love too was meant to be a sign, a symbol of the Divine. No man is the final goal of any woman, nor is any woman the ultimate purpose of any man. God is the end of both. Each person has the Infinite within him; and that is what we are after. We are both body and soul and even though our bodies can be satisfied with enough food and passion, the soul will never quench until we are united again with the Divine who created us. In the natural order of things, God has attached great pleasure to the unity of the flesh, yet that is nothing compared to the pleasure of unity of the spirit, when divinity passes out to humanity and humanity to divinity. If a human heart is capable of this love and can be so noble, so fine; if our heart can so thrill and exalt, and can make us so ecstatic, then what must be the great Heart of Christ!
Many people who think they fall in love are actually falling in love with the experience of love. We tend to attribute to people qualities that do not exist. A woman marries a "hero" and lives with a husband; a man marries a "goddess" and lives with a wife. This observation is important because we need to separate True Love from what we consider love to be. Imagine that as I am talking to you I constantly tapped my hand on the table. At first you would notice this and probably even call me hyperactive. But suppose I did this every day while talking to you, eventually you would not even notice because you would have grown accustom to it. In order to bring annoying behavior to your attention, I would have to make it more noticeable by exaggerating my actions every day. The same thing happens when we base love on feelings and sensations. If love is based solely upon emotions and feelings, then love dies if the emotion dies. But where there is love of a person because of the nobility of character and good heartedness, then love never ends, but increases from day to day.
Love is a kind of vision; it allows a penetration of the character of another, which at times far surpasses knowledge. The person who loves has a vision of beauty, which is denied in the person who hates. When love dies, even the truly beautiful stops being beautiful. A husband who begins to love another woman will often wonder why everyone else considers his wife attractive. This happens because he has lost the eyes to see her loveliness because of something that has happened inside of him. His heart becomes distorted just as his eyes do and what was once beautiful now seems ugly. He no longer has love in his heart. A cow and a poet may see the same sunset, and where the cow only sees the end to another day, the poet sees the infinity of God. So if what we perceive in others depends to a great extent on the love within our heart, it also follows that the dispositions of our heart and mind can distort, disfigure, or make appear in its true loveliness the image of Christ. The Son of God must have looked very different to Judas, than he did to John, whose heart was always burning with love. Because the love we have inside influences the way we see things, each of us sees and receives Christ according to the love in their heart. If the sun shines on wax it softens it; if it shines on mud it hardens it. There is no difference in the sun, but only on that which it shines. There is no difference in Christ, but each one receives what he/she is capable of receiving according to the love they have in their heart. Egotism, selfishness, hate, envy, and luxury will distort the image. This is what Jesus meant when He said "You will not come to me . . . I can see you have no love of God in your hearts." Love can make the ugly beautiful but a lack of love will make the most beautiful ugly.
As man continues to conquer space, he seems to lose the conquest of his self. In the same proportion as he masters what is outside of him, he seems to become enslaved on the inside. He has more room in which to stretch; but he has less room in which to expand his soul. His thoughts dwell on orbiting other planets; but he has no one thing around which he revolves. He knows how to control the universe; but cannot control himself.
Modern man is losing his soul; what's even worse, he doesn't realize he has a soul, which can be lost. If man loses his soul, he loses everything - even the civilization in which he lives. Sixteen out of twenty-one civilizations that have disappeared since the beginning of time did not succumb or fall because of attacks from without; they destroyed themselves from within because of decay of their spirit. Why is it that juvenile delinquency is highest in developed countries? Why are there more psychotics and neurotics among the over privileged than among the underprivileged? These things should call to mind the question of the Lord: "What good is it for a man, if he gains the whole world at the cost of losing his own soul?" So what if man can send highly technological equipment to study Mars and the vastness of space, while passion and selfishness devour him from within? The world indeed has to be remade, but this cannot and will not happen until man has first been remade.
To this end, there are 3 levels on which man may live:
1. Physically or Materially
2. Sensible or Carnal
3. Spiritual or the Divine
How does man establish hierarchies within himself making all material things serve the body and both of them serve the spirit? The answer is by realizing that there is within him a dynamic power, which is called love. Love is going out of self in order to help the neighbor, be this his family, community, nation or all humanity. But, this love is absolutely impossible without a practical knowledge and love of God. First of all, what would be the basis for loving all men regardless of race or color, if it were not for the fact that God is the Father of all? Some people will say that there exists a brotherhood of men. It would be nonsense to say that all men are brothers, unless they have a common father. To speak of the brotherhood of men without the Fatherhood of God is to make us all a race of illegitimate children. Furthermore, if there is no example of the Love of God, who came to this earth to save us who have sinned against Him, then what basis is there for loving those who hate us and do us harm? Jesus, speaking to those who only love the lovable said: "Will not the heathen do as much?" There is only one reason for loving those who apparently are not worth loving, and that is because we, who are not worth loving, are loved by God. Just as we cannot build a house without a plan, or travel cross-country without a map, we cannot love each other without loving God.
To be selfish does not mean that we love ourselves, Jesus Himself told us to "Love thy neighbor as thyself". It does mean however, an undue love of self. If loving ourselves was not the right thing to do, our Lord would not have given us this commandment. Selfishness is the love of the wrong self, the self that is indifferent to others. A man is not selfish for wanting to provide the best for his family, but he becomes selfish if he does this regardless of the loss and pain he may cause others in the process. An author by the name of Trench tells the story of an architect who was ordered by the Pharaoh to build a high tower, which would warn ships of dangerous rocks in the sea. The architect cut in large letters in the stone of this tower, his own name. He then plastered over this carving, and on the plaster he wrote the name of the Pharaoh with gold. Everyone believed that he was greatly honoring Pharaoh. In time, the waves washed away the gold and the plaster, leaving behind the carving. The only name that appeared then on the tower was the architects'.
It is not unusual to find that there are many people who will, like the architect in the story, apparently glorify others, even glorify God, but in their own selfish way they are only gratifying their own self-love. The ungenerous and selfish person has forgotten that everything he has came from God and that, acting as a trustee or administrator instead of an owner, he will one day have to render account of his stewardship. Furthermore, the more generous we are with others, the more merciful will be our own judgment. To make sure we understood this, Jesus told the story of the one hundred sheep, the ten pieces of money, and the two sons. One of the hundred sheep was lost and upon finding it, the shepherd carried it on his shoulders back to the other ninety-nine. The woman who lost the ten pieces of gold rejoiced more at finding the one that was lost than in the other nine that were safe. The father was so happy at the return of the prodigal son that he killed a fatted calf. These are all pictures of mercy, kindness, and the forgiveness of God to those who show mercy, kindness and forgiveness to others.
At what point then are selfishness and greed turned into thoughtfulness of others? In a way, when we become conscious that all men are brothers with one common Father in Heaven. We become more conscious when we realize that by having the great debt for our sins forgiven, we should seek to relieve the debts of others. The one thing that changes the soul of man, that changes selfishness into generosity, that devalues the material in order to give greater value to the spiritual is the supreme manifestation of the supreme love manifested in God, who gave Himself onto death to pay our debt of sin and to rescue us from the ghetto of selfishness that make us so weak and frustrated.
Throughout history, particularly in times of moral and spiritual crisis, an era of carnality erupts. The Letter of St. Paul to the Romans describes this phenomenon. Paul writes about the close relationship that exists between the rejection of God and homosexuality, and the rejection of authority with violence, and the primacy of sensual pleasures before duty. Are we going through one of these periods of moral or cultural degeneration? Without a doubt! Frequently, people who are frustrated look towards sexual promiscuity as some sort of escape, and this same behavior exists in society as a whole. This is seen clearly today in movies, music, art, the economy, not to mention politics. This cultural decay reveals itself in two particular areas:
1) Public Life
2) Family Life
In public life there is an overwhelming want of integrity and honesty. People are tired of being taken advantage of over a "fast buck", they're tired of built in obsolescence in the things they buy - this is very evident in the computer and high-tech industry. But in family life this moral and cultural decay is also seen in too many fathers and mothers who avoid their responsibilities burying themselves in excessive work or alcohol or drugs; in a lack of fidelity and love within the home; the increase of domestic violence and in the most extreme of cases, death by murder or suicide because of a disordered family life. The family that lives in this way cannot expect to raise anything but children who rebel against everything and ridicule everything because they have no confidence in anything. Their frustration must be vented and usually it is in an orgiastic manner with overemphasis on sex and excitement. Parents will justify themselves by saying "I can't do anything with my children". They're right! They've already done enough. What should have been done, was not - and what can be done will not. We have created a world filled with abandonment - parents have abandoned their children and these in turn have abandoned themselves. Our world has become a lonely place.
There are different types of loneliness: the loneliness of a child who, in moments of bitter isolation, feels unloved by parents; the loneliness of a boy who seems ostracized from his peers, or who is teased by the crowd because of some physical defect; the loneliness of a girl who feels like a boat lost in a sea where everyone is prettier and more popular; the loneliness of the children of divorced parents, who spend the spring with one, the autumn with another, but it all adds up to a winter of discontent, tension and frustration; the loneliness of the man who has passed middle age, and does not see any power beyond those he has spent in his youth; the loneliness of the sinner, whose conscience tortures in the night; the loneliness of the married who have exhausted all the subjects of conversation and who have forgotten how to be companions in the pursuit of love; the loneliness of the unmarried who dream of the unending happiness that would have been theirs. It's difficult to believe that in an age of so much communication, with so many telephones, Faxes, the Internet and mass transportation, so much loneliness can exist.
Loneliness, however, is not necessarily a bad thing - when we have faith! Detachment, retirement, escape from the crowds, a retreat where we can prepare our souls - these are all part of a healthy loneliness. Our Lord Himself frequently withdrew from the crowds: before He chose the twelve; before embarking on His mission and public life; before His trial and death. In the silence of loneliness, our souls have an opportunity for spiritual growth, an opportunity to refresh ourselves and to gain enlightenment. In this silence of our inner being we find God. But, if there is no faith, if we believe only in this life and have no hope for the next, loneliness can be the cause of fear, tribulation and pain. This type of loneliness is truly a terrible thing.
If we were truly honest with ourselves, we'd have to admit that each of us has more trouble with ourselves than with any other person in the world. We tend to know other people better than we know ourselves. Someone once asked Socrates why he was so unhappy despite the fact that he traveled over the world. Socrates said: "Because wherever I go, I take myself with me." The price we pay for not knowing ourselves is the rejection of responsibility over our actions - we're not responsible for the evil we do. Ironically, we praise ourselves for the little good we do. We're not responsible because that's just the way we are: "I'm just too fat"; "I'm just an old sinner"; "I just can't help myself"; "That's just the way God made me". We truly believe we can do nothing to better ourselves - we have no more faith in ourselves as we do in the God who created us.
In a way, we are all very much like an onion: each one of us is made up of many coats or layers. Since tearing them off brings tears, we avoid stripping down to our real self. Our conscience is like the vain woman in front of a mirror: as soon as she sees herself, she puts on her makeup. Yet no matter how hard we try to disguise ourselves - to show a different self to others, the real enemy is within. No matter how hard we try, we can't love ourselves when we do wrong. The more proud we are, the less we know about ourselves, and the more sensitive we are to the insults of others. But the person who knows himself, not by others standards or how he is before his friends and neighbors, but as he is before God, that person is never much troubled about the attacks of others. This person’s primary worry is how he can become not just a man or woman, but a true child of God. We can learn much more about ourselves by being on our knees for five minutes than we can by sitting on a couch for five years.
We complain at the moment someone begins to probe into our lives. As long as the probing stays on the surface of our soul and doesn't touch self-complacency, we let the probing go on. The fear of coming face to face with our real self makes us tremble. That's why any religion that allows man to continue living the way he does is well accepted. But a religion that brings him face to face with Heaven's standards makes the soul tremble. And yet with all this avoidance, the depths of our heart are filled with spiritual aspirations that we don't know how to satisfy. We seek to quench these aspirations by turning to the tangible - to those things we see and touch, believing that what we seek will be found. We have not yet understood that to quench our soul we need only to communicate with the God who created us and gives us inspiration; the God who because of Love, is ever coming down to unite our soul with His and infuse in us His unending Divine Love. God continually searches for man, yet man tries to escape from God. We complain that God is alienated from His creation, that He's a distant God and can't be found. The truth is that we are afraid of being found, because if we allow God to find us and open our hearts to Him, we find ourselves and that's what we're afraid of.
We live in a world where psychology takes the place of religion, self-aid replaces grace and denial of guilt eliminates pleas for the forgiveness of sins. Today's world contradicts all the spiritual truths revealed to us in Jesus Christ.
The world says:
Jesus teaches:
Blessed is sex Blessed are the clean of heart
Assert your rights Happiness is of the meek and humble
Protect your treasures Detachment from the material
What the world teaches about happiness is that it is found in things, what we possess and what we desire. A wise man once decided to hide happiness from man. He believed that man did not deserve to be happy, because of his very nature towards evil. The wise man consulted with great thinkers and asked them to find a place to hide happiness. After some time, the great thinkers returned with this answer: "Hide happiness in the center of the earth; man shall not find it there". The wise man reflected on that and responded: "One day, man will be able to create a machine which can dig deep into the earth and find happiness. We must find another place". Again the great thinkers returned with another answer: "Hide happiness at the bottom of the ocean, for surely no man can reach it there". The wise man reflected and gave this response: "One day, man will build large steal fishes in which he will ride and be able to explore the depths of the ocean and find happiness. We must find another place". The great thinkers again pondered at this great task and returned with yet another answer: "We have finally found a place that man will never reach. Hide happiness in the vastness of space for man will never find it there". After a long silence the wise man said: "Man will one day build huge steal birds with great wings to propel himself through space and may come upon happiness. That is not the place. But I now know where to hide happiness. Man will always look for happiness in what he can see and touch; in those things which are outside of him. That is why I will hide happiness in his heart for he will never look inside of himself to find it".
The man who wants nothing is the man who has everything, for there is nothing that he desires which he already does not have. True happiness comes only from within, for it is there that God has willed to put His Love. It is up to each person to open his/her heart so that God may work within. St. John of the Cross says:
To
come to taste everything,
Do
not taste anything.
To
come to know everything,
Do
not seek to know anything.
To
come to possess all things,
Do
not seek to possess anything.
To
come to what you do not taste,
You
have to go where you do not taste.
To
come to what you do not know,
You
have to go where you do not know.
To
come to possess what you do not possess,
You
have to go where you do not possess.
To
come to where you are not,
You
have to go where you are not.
When
you notice something,
Cease
to throw yourself at everything.
To
come from all to all,
You
have to leave all for all.
And
when you have come to have all,
You
have to have it without wanting anything.
Some so-called kind souls love the poor in theory, but not in practice. How many novels have been written about poor farmers, the homeless and the poor, but we have to wonder how much of the royalties earned from these stories was ever given to them. Some politicians who are rich beyond imagination vigorously fight for the underprivileged, but how many of them have actually dug into their deep pockets. This type of benevolence does not only happen outside of the church or religion as a whole. Throughout Sacred Scripture we find stories of the poor or lame who are looked down upon pitifully by others. Jesus makes it a point to separate justice from charity and both from speculative benevolence.
Charity is what we give out of the goodness of our hearts or out of obedience to someone who does not necessarily deserve what we are giving. On the other hand, justice is giving to others what they rightfully deserve because of their human dignity. When we give food to the hungry, or give clothing to the naked, we have done no more than give to them what they have a right to receive - it is not charity it's justice. Contrary to this, when we clean-out our closet to donate clothing to victims of a catastrophe, or clear our pantry of the creamed corn that nauseates us to give to the poor on Thanksgiving, that is neither justice or charity but speculative benevolence to clear our conscience and allow us to beat our chests. Social misery must not be given just a passing glance. It must become for us a personal concern as it was for our Lord.
I'm a person who needs examples in order to understand. I don't understand math unless I'm given an example of the problem; I can't understand chemical theory unless I see models of atoms and such. Neither can I boast of having grasped the meaning of Christian charity until I have put it in practice. In the same way, I believe no one can understand Love until it manifests itself in true generous giving. We can give all that we have yet that does not prove that we love; rather love manifests itself in giving. To give in order to make another country our first trench in a war for our national defense is one thing; to give to another nation in order that people might be dispensed from material necessities to be free to lead virtuous lives and save their immortal souls is quite another thing. The people to whom the Kingdom is open are those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the sick because true giving is born from love. If we bring water to thirsty lips as if the lips that are touching the cup were those of Christ Himself or provide warm clothing to the shivering as if the one who was shivering was Christ Himself, then the value of our gift will pierce the gates of Heaven.