Tag: Love

You Are Christ’s Body

Jesus is truly the fulfillment of the Old Covenant of God with his people. He is the completion of which the Law and Prophets pointed and anticipated. St. Luke tells us in his Gospel that near the beginning of his ministry, Jesus, who customarily attended and taught in the synagogue, was handed a particular scroll of Scripture and then proclaimed a particular prophecy from Isaiah: “’The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.’ Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, ‘Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.’” (NAB, LK 4:18-21)

We who are followers of Jesus, are called to fulfill that same prophecy. We are called to bring the Good News to our world, to open the eyes of the blind with the light of Christ, to proclaim true freedom and liberty to the imprisoned and oppressed, and to lift up the poor. As Christians, we have died with Christ in Baptism, and so we now live in his Spirit, as members of the One Body of Christ. “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. Now the body is not a single part, but many.” (1COR 12:13-14) St. Paul also offers this reminder: “You are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.” (12:27)

We are the Body of Christ and Temples of the Holy Spirit, and as such, we are to carry out and accomplish the mission and promise to be fulfilled through his coming. In a sense, we are the hands, eyes, ears, mouth, feet, and heart of Jesus. We are in this world to bring his ministry and Good News of Love to our hurting and confused world. We must hear the cries of the financially and spiritually poor, and accommodate their needs. We must hold and console the suffering, grieving, and dying. We must teach and bring about true freedom for those who are spiritually and physically oppressed and imprisoned. Love compels us to proclaim the Word of God, the Truth revealed to humanity, through our words and actions in this lost world of ours. To withhold the true teachings of God from our families, friends, and neighbors is to withhold Jesus himself. It is of no service, and is absolutely contrary to love, to avoid truth by softening or avoiding the uncomfortable teachings of our Lord. Our God is One God, indivisible, and cannot be divided against himself. His Love and his Truth are one in the same.

Heavenly Father, give me your grace and the courage I need to proclaim your Truth in my world. I will not fear the lies of this world, for you are always with me, you, who have conquered sin and death and opened the doors to eternal life. Your Spirit dwells within me, and my hands, my feet, my mouth, my ears, and my eyes are yours. Take my heart as well, and use them according to your will and for your glory. Amen.

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God is Love

Our call to love is reiterated again for us today in the First Letter of John: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.” (NAB, 1JN 4:7-8) If we wish to unite ourselves with God, then we must unite ourselves to love, and love is action.

We oftentimes think of romanticized love that conjures up all kinds of feelings and emotions, but love is action, putting another before ourselves. Love requires humility, where we recognize the inherent dignity of each other; we are, after all, each created in the image and likeness of Almighty God. Love implies commitment, dedication, and consistency. Even when one considers that moment of “falling in love,” it turns out not to be a moment at all. There isn’t one single thing that a person does for us that evokes such feelings and emotions. Rather, it is the consistent pattern of behavior over time that yields love; it is the continual presence and commitment of the other who is concerned for us and our wellbeing.

Jesus’ love for us isn’t a mere historical event or a single act revealed in a Roman execution. His love for us is continuous, without beginning or end. He is with us at every moment of each day. He continuously lays down his life for us, sustains us, showers us with his grace, gives us the gifts of the Spirit, comforts us, has mercy upon us, forgives us, and graciously blesses us in so many, many ways.

Lord, you call all people to yourself in love. It was this love which manifest itself so perfectly in your Holy and Sacred Passion, where you laid down your very life for me. Give me courage and strength through humility, that I may act according to your Holy Will, to love those whom you have put in my life, so that I may be more perfectly united to you. Amen.

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Sacrifice & Forgiveness

The Twelfth Day of Christmas!

We are reminded today that Jesus not only came to fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament, but also to undo the Fall of humanity. The loss of Eternal Paradise by our First Parents came through sin, and death became its result. “This is the message you have heard from the beginning: we should love one another, unlike Caine who belonged to the Evil One and slaughtered his brother.” (NAB, 1JN 3:11-12) Murder is clearly a sin and violation of the Law, but Jesus brought us a new Law of Love, where even the sin of anger, the basis and motivation behind murder, leads to the same judgment: “But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” (MT 5:22) “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.” (1JN 3:15)

The Gospel of Jesus Christ IS the Gospel of Love, for Jesus is himself love eternal. We are all sinners and rightly deserve death, but we, as children of God, have received the Good News of Jesus with certainty, and “we know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers. The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. Let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.” (3:14, 16, 18)

We have been culturally deceived by childhood movies and fairy tales, along with our cultural norms, into believing love should not entail sacrifice, that it’s supposed to be “happily ever after,” but the Truth of love can be found in the Passion of our Lord, in reflecting upon his great love, after having been physically and mentally tortured, beaten, humiliated, abused, abandoned, and crucified, while dying on the cross, he utters, “Father, forgive them.” (LK 5:34)

Lord, make me a person of forgiveness and mercy. I have been forgiven much, yet I hold back mercy, love, and forgiveness from others. Take away my anger and fill me with your love, your True love, love that knows sacrifice, love that knows You. To lay down myself means, at a minimum, to give up my selfishness, my desires, and my ego for love of you. Give me the grace and gifts I need, and when I am tempted, let me remember your Great Passion and see the Crucifix from which you spoke forgiveness. Amen.

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Sin Can’t Win

After the Magi gave homage the infant Jesus, they are warned in a dream not to return to Herod, and Joseph is also warned by the Angel of God that the life of Jesus is in jeopardy and that he is to flee immediately to Egypt with Mary and Jesus.

On this Fourth Day of Christmas we reflect on the magnitude of sin and the great lengths one may go in pursuit of pride, prestige, and power. King Herod was threatened by the presence of the baby Jesus, knowing that the prophecies about him might be true, so “when Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi.” (NAB, MT 2:16) In a most horrific act of evil, Herod slaughtered these innocent babies, yet unbeknownst to himself, he was also fulfilling another prophecy about the coming Messiah.

While it is uncertain how many children were murdered in Bethlehem, we remember that they died at the hands of a paranoid and evil ruler strictly because of Christ. Furthermore, the suffering experienced by the families of these innocents would continue for generations. Sin is never isolated and individual. We are communal by nature, and our sins, although we think of them as quiet and private, never really are. God triumphs here. After the death of Herod, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph returned to the Promised Land from Egypt, just as God had brought his Chosen People to the Promised Land from the slavery of Egypt generations earlier.

Sin continues to impact all of us, even sins of generations past, but sin has no power over God, and his love will not be shut out. Jesus, our innocent Savior, will also experience the full force of sin at his Passion, but once again, he will demonstrate his power over this world and its evils through his Resurrection and Ascension. We are called to trust God, knowing that he is in control, even in the darkest moments of life.

Father, allow me to trust you. Help me to see that where sin abounds, your love is present all the more, and that all things, even evil ones, will work out for your glory since nothing can overcome your love. Increase my faith in you, Jesus. Amen.

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Come Home

God desperately loves each and every one of us. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells a short parable of a shepherd with “a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?” (NAB, MT 18:12) Jesus further explains that it is similar regarding our Heavenly Father when one of his children goes astray, and upon finding the lost, the shepherd, our Lord, greatly rejoices!

Being lost, and then found, brings to mind the incredible song by writer John Newton; the great spiritual hymn, Amazing Grace: “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” It is by God’s good grace that we are found, that we are welcomed into his family, and it is only through his grace that salvation may be ours. We have wandered, but our loving Father brings us back home.

Thank you for loving me, sweet Jesus, and thank you for always searching for me and pursuing me in your love whenever I am lost. You love me with an inexhaustible love, and I am grateful. Help me to love others and rejoice in coming home to you. Amen.

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Heaven’s Perfection of Love

Jesus teaches something interesting about the resurrected life by responding to a potential trap set by the Sadducees in the Gospel of Luke (20:27-40). The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, and so they crafted a question to Jesus: If a barren woman is widowed and remarried several times during her lifetime, who will be her husband in heaven? The Sadducees believed that it is impossible for Jesus to provide an adequate answer since it is impossible for him to select a particular husband, nor is it possible to say she would be married to all of them. Either choice would deny certain aspects and understandings of marriage itself. This argument and attempt to trap Jesus, however, merely demonstrates the depth of their ignorance and lack of comprehension regarding eternal life.

Jesus counters their question by teaching them that in heaven, there are no “goodbyes.” Relationships are perfect and unending. All of our relationships will exist within the context of our relationship with God, a relationship based on a perfection of love that is not realized during our lives on earth. Marriage is an imperfect reflection of the perfect love of God for us and of the Trinitarian love that will sustain us in the eternal life of the resurrection. Therefore, the limitations and restrictions on love that exist within the context of human relationships vanish in the presence of infinite, eternal love.

Father, help me to love. I desire to love others as myself. Give me the courage and strength I need to love as you love, and to forgive as you forgive. May my relationships with others reflect more boldly and brightly that eternal and infinite love with which you love me. Amen.

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