Back to the February 2003 Newsletter Index

Excerpts from Making God the Joy of Our Soul

LOVE IS SELF-SACRIFICE

Everybody admires love; we even have it on our postage stamps! But the reason why this seems so agreeable is that there's an equivocation on the word, "love."

Most people tend to think of love as what we are attracted to naturally. But love in the New Testament is really that which we are not attracted to: it's sacrifice, it's self-giving; Love is not a feeling, but love is self-donation, sacrifice; it's a decision to give oneself to others.

This appears very clearly in our Lord Jesus' words in the Gospel, that to follow Him along the way of love means to be willing to turn away from everything that we naturally love: father, mother, brother, sister, even one's very self. Self denial is what really shows that we love.

Our Lord said, If you love me, keep my commandments. The only way to know if we have real love -because it's not a feeling-is if we keep His commandments.

We must make this very concrete. We have to realize if we're going to grow in love, we have to be making very concrete steps, practical steps that can be seen, decisions to love Him more.

You will not know if you're growing in love by the way you feel. On, the contrary, you may feel a million miles away from Him and, in fact, be loving Him very much.

And what is the test? If your prayer ends in a very concrete resolution: how can I do something today to change my life slightly more to be a little more like Lord Jesus, pick up my cross a little more today and follow in His footsteps? A very concrete way of showing you love the Lord, though you may not feel that you love the Lord any more.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

Too often we think of our search for holiness in a very self-centered way, as a sort of self-improvement, making myself more humble, more disciplined, more recollected, or some other virtue rather than realizing that our perfection will come as a,by-product of focusing on the other and loving them.

To love one another is to see in each person the good that the Lord Jesus sees in them, the great inestimable value that makes sense of that Psalm, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" Something so good in each person that God cared about it enough to die to preserve it.

We have to see past all the defenses that people putup, all of the crutches they have, all the superficialities which can make people so annoying/or difficult.

We have to see past to their soul, just their soul:.naked before God. We have to especially see them, imagine them, with their hidden sufferings, which is what God sees so much and why He loves to go out to them and heal them.

We have to meditate upon these things or imagine them in each of our neighbors, especially in the ones that are difficult, so as to love one another.

FREQUENT CONFESSION

No one must ever be afraid to come to confession. The encounter is with Jesus Christ Himself (the priest is just an interpreter, or instrument that God has chosen to use to receive the confession and to communicate the grace of forgiveness).

Jesus is genuinely, completely sinless, it is true, but not for all that like the Pharisee, who thinks purity is a reason to despise everyone else. On the contrary, Jesus, sinless though He was, took the part of sinners. He sought them out, He befriended and defended them, He saw the good that was left in them.

He identified Himself with them, taking his part with the accursed, dying upon a cross. He is drawn to us because we are sinners, as a merciful child is drawn to a bird, because it has a broken wing. He loves us.

Why don't we all turn again and seek the true face of God which is shown to us in the confessional the merciful, gentle, holy face of God which endured buffets and spitting and a crown of thorns for us, to win us a crown of righteousness.