Readings: Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48. 1Jn 4:7-10. Jn 15:9-17
One thing that happens to most of us in daily life is the phenomenon of falling in love. And we tell the people we’ve fallen in love with that we love them. And we also tell those with admirable qualities that we love them. When these qualities change, or when we fall out of love (such as when the other person doesn’t seem to reciprocate our love or doesn’t love us the way we want), we feel that we don’t love any longer.
The feelings we sometimes call love are not love. Falling in love is not love. Attraction, by itself, can never be equated to love. Love is the life of God in the individual manifested. This life of God is essentially self-giving (and not selfish, not for satisfying one’s own insufficiencies). This is why it’s freeing (and not sticky or jealous). To truly love, we must necessarily obey the dictates of Love.
May Jesus Christ, the True Lover, grant us the grace to manifest God’s Love wherever we are, and especially to those close to us.