Love is. It is February, and love is in the air. Throughout the month, we will be presented with beautiful images of love in advertising, read moving stories of love online, and hear music about love on our streaming devices. Even young children will share Valentine cards and candy on February 14. Many of the people who celebrate love on that day do not realize that Valentine is a saint, a third century martyr.
We often carelessly throw the word “love” about,. We “love” the newest show, restaurant, or possession. We “love” activities, annual gatherings, and traditions. We love family, friends, and neighbors. Of course, even in using the word in these many, varied ways, we know that there are distinctions between the love we have for places, possessions and people. The Sunday readings this month lead us to reflect on what love is, and to strive for the love that Jesus shows and shares.
Love is a gift. Anyone who has ever experienced love (hopefully, that is all of
us!) knows the amazing and mysterious gift that love is. There is literally nothing like it! We must be prepared to receive this great gift attentively and know that receiving love calls us to give love in return.
Love is a reflection of God. God is love. As Jean Valjean movingly sings at the end of the musical Les Miserables, “to love another person is to see the face of God.” Jesus helps us understand that we see God’s face most profoundly in the gaze of the stranger, the poor, lonely, imprisoned, grieving, and vulnerable. What we do or fail to do are actions or inactions for the Lord himself.
Love is a virtue. God dwells in us. As temples of the Holy Spirit, we are called to grow and live in love. The more readily we do so, the more likely it will be that others will see and experience God through us.
Love is self-giving. Jesus shows us that God’s way is the way of self-giving love. Selfless love is not easy. We are often tempted to place conditions on our love — we will show others love when they earn it. Yet, Jesus calls us to love. All the time. Everyone. Jesus even calls us to love our enemies, do good to those who hurt us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us. (Feb. 24, Lk 6:27-38) This is such a profound way of life that we might think it impossible, and yet, all things are possible with the grace of God.
Love never fails. When in doubt, seek good for the other, reach out in love, and know that where love is, there God is found!
Fall in love. “We become what we love and who we
love shapes what we become.” — St. Clare of Assisi
2
Practice loving. “You learn to speak by speaking, to
study by studying, to work by working, and just so, you learn to love by loving.
All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.”
— St. Francis deSales
3
Share love. “What does love look like? It has the
hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has
eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of
men. That is what love looks like.” — St. Augustine
Learn and grow in love through the wisdom of the saints.
No one tells you that love is messy. by Amberly Boerschinger
My sister refuses to have play-dough in her home because it is messy. She may be a WAY better housekeeper than I am, but to me, play-dough is love. A back seat littered with fast food cups and snack wrappers during a road trip is love. Stinky, muddy football or soccer uniforms are love. Ugly crying during an argument with a dear friend or spouse is love. Messy hair? Don’t care because it is 10 o’clock at night and I finished the favors for my sister’s wedding!
The saints and martyrs knew that love is messy. In fact, the Church uses red as the color of the martyrs because they loved so much they shed their blood! St. Agatha (February 5th) was tempted and tortured for her love of God and her purity. She is remembered to have said, “For love of chastity I am made to hang from a rack.” St. Jerome Emiliani (February 6th) learned to pray while he was imprisoned. As a priest he served the sick and poor, particularly abandoned children. He founded three orphanages, a shelter for penitent prostitutes and a hospital. He died at the age of 51 from a disease he caught tending the sick. Sounds messy, right?
Why is love messy? Because love is being real. Love is giving everything without expectation of receiving anything in return. Love is laying down one’s life, one’s preferences, one’s comfort for the sake of another. That is not neat or easy, but it IS worth it. Love is messy, just ask Jesus.
Amberly is a wife and mother of three and the Coordinator of Discipleship Formation and Communications for Nativity Parish in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
What is in your heart today? Is all well between you, God, and others? What change would make things better? We all have habits, attitudes, and behaviors that we know in our hearts we should change. Perhaps it is a small thing that nags us every time we do it, yet we still do. Or perhaps it is a bigger sin that needs to be removed from our life. We do not talk about sin often in our culture, but that does not mean that no one sins any more. In fact, facing up to our sinfulness and weakness is good for our souls, and for our lives!
When we turn away from the things we know in our hearts we shouldn't do, our relationships are better, our interactions with others more positive, and we find peace. We embrace holiness. How do we find the grace to turn away from sinfulness? Listen carefully to the Sunday readings this month: we will hear stories of people who did just that. The writer of Isaiah, for instance, realizes he is in God's presence and immediately recognizes his sinfulness. Simon Peter does the same, in awe of
the miraculous catch of fish upon Jesus' command. Knowing themselves to be captured by the gaze of God, their first thought was to admit their weakness. They did not stop there, however. Once they turned toward God with open and vulnerable hearts, they declared themselves ready to live in love.
We, too, are in God's sight. We know that God is always with us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The sacraments are encounters with the living God, and in a special way, we experience Christ's presence in the Eucharist. Through the sacrament of Reconciliation and Penance, God waits for us to experience forgiveness and mercy. Isaiah and Simon Peter show us the way. Once we have admitted our faults and know God's loving and forgiving gaze, our next step is to turn toward Christ with our lives. Next month marks the beginning of Lent. Now is the perfect time to pause and consider: What do you need to turn away from? What do you need to turn toward? God waits, ready with a loving embrace.
Turn toward God. Live in love.
Love in action We recently read about an amazing transformation of a parish and its people who is spreading love in a profound way. A couple of years ago, Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Parish and 95% of the town of St. Amant, Louisiana had been destroyed by a flood. The new pastor, Fr. Johnson, reached out to a cloistered order of nuns and asked them to spiritually adopt the parish and pray for them. He added time that the sacraments would be available, and rearranged the daily schedule so that staff members could begin their day with Mass and adoration.
What happened is an amazing testimony to the power of the Holy Spirit and of love: parishioners saw the needs of people around them and started offering help. Now, the former rectory is Full of Grace Cafe: Quenching God’s Thirst for Charity and Justice, where people can give and receive — food, diapers, a laundromat, volunteer human resources specialists, psychological and legal counselors, hair stylists, a Creighton Fertility Care specialist, an ultrasound machine. People are being drawn to Christ and the Church. through the service and witness of the parish.
“I recognize I am a limited member of the Body of Christ,” Fr. Johnson said. “I’m a necessary member for sure, but I’m very limited, my role is limited, so if I can just build up my parishioners to say yes to being the particular member of the Body of Christ they’re called to be, I’ve done my job well because then we’re gonna run, we’re gonna thrive.”
Read the full story via the link on our Facebook page: facebook.com/faithimpactslife.
