You might have often heard Christians say, God loves us. To be honest, I used to find this adage rather sentimental and somewhat irrational. In any case, how does it matter if God loves us or not and what does it mean to love anyway? The best definition of love that I have ever heard is one from Bishop Robert Barron. Love, the bishop says, "willing the good of the other as other." All of us love but all of us love conditionally. That is to say, we love ourselves when we love somebody else. But God loves us even if we don't love him. He loves us when we make mistakes and he loves us when we're suffering and when we're happy.
Even the most unconditional human love you can think of, such as a parent's love for his newborn still contains, at least to some extent, self-love. If you wanted to see what true love looks like, you need to look at the Cross on which our savior Jesus died. This is a great meditation for today; we're Friday in Passion Week, exactly one week before Good Friday. It is precisely this love that "converted" me. On the Cross, God tells us he has nothing to gain by loving us. His love is totally selfless. One priest once told me, to fully understand God's love for us, it is important to realize that God created the world out of love and out of love, his Son Jesus (more on Jesus and Trinity later), died a rather sad death on the cross, something he could have avoided if he wanted to. It is a love that makes no sense. It's an irrational love that gives us the strength to love when it makes no sense whatsoever to love.
What would become of me if God did not give me courage?
This is the question Therese asks in today's daily reflection and it is a question I ask often. If not for the great example of love that Jesus showed me on the Cross, would have I had the courage to follow him? What I have had the courage to love others? Because, to love others, requires immense courage. We have to be prepared to be disappointed. When we love, we are vulnerable, others can mock our love, criticize us and pay our love back with vengeance and hatred.
God gave me courage and he gave me courage through his Cross. I don't like to talk about my depression often but it was a sad and painful event in my life. I had graduated from university but had not yet clinched that all-important first job. I had serious confidence issues and was struggling with my new faith. How to reconcile this new faith with the faith that my family had passed on to me? On the one hand, God's love is manifest powerfully in Christ and on the other hand, this love for Christ asks us to make difficult choices. If God didn't give me courage, I would have never made it.
It is in those trying months in 2016, when I was at the rock bottom of my life, that I understood what Jesus went through during his passion. Unlike my own story where things eventually got better, Christ suffered this anguish right up until his death. If it wasn't for his example, wouldn't I have given up fighting altogether?
And so, by dying such a painful death, Jesus identifies with us when we are the worst point in our lives. When we feel alone, unloved and weak, we can look up to somebody who had it worse. It would be wrong however to see Christianity as a crutch when things are difficult in life. If that were the case, it'd be way too easy to forget Jesus when things start to get better. After all, who needs God when everything is well? Do we not turn to God precisely when we have exhausted all other options?
The Cross gives us another lesson, something that saints throughout history have understood beautifully. The Cross is not just about us but about imitating Jesus. We are called to imitate Jesus's love and his humility in the Cross. God's love is folly and our love should also imitate this folly. Jesus being fully God had no need for this suffering. If he did suffer, it was out of love for us. We all suffer from time to time, but isn't it best to suffer like God, to suffer for love?
Depression in my case was accentuated by the fact that I was so focused on my own life and my own struggles that I failed to see the struggles of other people around me. I was so focused on my own little world that I failed to appreciate the beauty of the world outside.
In the upcoming posts, I will tell you how the Cross liberated me and offered me a new perspective on life. But before I finish, let me just say one thing about God's love. Yesterday, I talked about God's mercy, today let me show what it means in a very concrete way. Concretely, God's mercy means that no matter where we are in life right now, God is with us. As the Psalms tell us, even if we were to descend to the depths of godforsakenness, God is still there with us. And the Cross is a perfect example of this unending mercy. Even as Jesus was dying on the cross, he was forgiving our sins and offering us a second chance.
God loved me when I didn't know him. He loves me now and he will always love me. How can I be sure of this? And how I can have the courage to talk about his love in a public forum if Jesus didn't suffer his passion? It is his passion that gives us the strength to love and to talk about love. When I say, God loves me, I mean God loves me at all times even when I do not perceive it.
Have a blessed Friday and remember you are loved by a God who is extremely good and who loves you no matter who you are and how bad your life is. May his love give us courage this day and give us courage for the rest of our lives.
Even the most unconditional human love you can think of, such as a parent's love for his newborn still contains, at least to some extent, self-love. If you wanted to see what true love looks like, you need to look at the Cross on which our savior Jesus died. This is a great meditation for today; we're Friday in Passion Week, exactly one week before Good Friday. It is precisely this love that "converted" me. On the Cross, God tells us he has nothing to gain by loving us. His love is totally selfless. One priest once told me, to fully understand God's love for us, it is important to realize that God created the world out of love and out of love, his Son Jesus (more on Jesus and Trinity later), died a rather sad death on the cross, something he could have avoided if he wanted to. It is a love that makes no sense. It's an irrational love that gives us the strength to love when it makes no sense whatsoever to love.
What would become of me if God did not give me courage?
This is the question Therese asks in today's daily reflection and it is a question I ask often. If not for the great example of love that Jesus showed me on the Cross, would have I had the courage to follow him? What I have had the courage to love others? Because, to love others, requires immense courage. We have to be prepared to be disappointed. When we love, we are vulnerable, others can mock our love, criticize us and pay our love back with vengeance and hatred.
God gave me courage and he gave me courage through his Cross. I don't like to talk about my depression often but it was a sad and painful event in my life. I had graduated from university but had not yet clinched that all-important first job. I had serious confidence issues and was struggling with my new faith. How to reconcile this new faith with the faith that my family had passed on to me? On the one hand, God's love is manifest powerfully in Christ and on the other hand, this love for Christ asks us to make difficult choices. If God didn't give me courage, I would have never made it.
It is in those trying months in 2016, when I was at the rock bottom of my life, that I understood what Jesus went through during his passion. Unlike my own story where things eventually got better, Christ suffered this anguish right up until his death. If it wasn't for his example, wouldn't I have given up fighting altogether?
And so, by dying such a painful death, Jesus identifies with us when we are the worst point in our lives. When we feel alone, unloved and weak, we can look up to somebody who had it worse. It would be wrong however to see Christianity as a crutch when things are difficult in life. If that were the case, it'd be way too easy to forget Jesus when things start to get better. After all, who needs God when everything is well? Do we not turn to God precisely when we have exhausted all other options?
The Cross gives us another lesson, something that saints throughout history have understood beautifully. The Cross is not just about us but about imitating Jesus. We are called to imitate Jesus's love and his humility in the Cross. God's love is folly and our love should also imitate this folly. Jesus being fully God had no need for this suffering. If he did suffer, it was out of love for us. We all suffer from time to time, but isn't it best to suffer like God, to suffer for love?
Depression in my case was accentuated by the fact that I was so focused on my own life and my own struggles that I failed to see the struggles of other people around me. I was so focused on my own little world that I failed to appreciate the beauty of the world outside.
In the upcoming posts, I will tell you how the Cross liberated me and offered me a new perspective on life. But before I finish, let me just say one thing about God's love. Yesterday, I talked about God's mercy, today let me show what it means in a very concrete way. Concretely, God's mercy means that no matter where we are in life right now, God is with us. As the Psalms tell us, even if we were to descend to the depths of godforsakenness, God is still there with us. And the Cross is a perfect example of this unending mercy. Even as Jesus was dying on the cross, he was forgiving our sins and offering us a second chance.
God loved me when I didn't know him. He loves me now and he will always love me. How can I be sure of this? And how I can have the courage to talk about his love in a public forum if Jesus didn't suffer his passion? It is his passion that gives us the strength to love and to talk about love. When I say, God loves me, I mean God loves me at all times even when I do not perceive it.
Have a blessed Friday and remember you are loved by a God who is extremely good and who loves you no matter who you are and how bad your life is. May his love give us courage this day and give us courage for the rest of our lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment