Coming to understand God's love

Last winter, we in the Church were enriched by a very special gift, bestowed upon us by Pope Benedict XVI: his first encyclical, "Deus caritas est" (God is Love).

While his encyclical offers a timely and profound message the entire world needs to hear, I believe it has particular relevance for us who seek to walk the path of Christian discipleship.

The encyclical is both a marvelous instruction and a beautiful reminder of the unfathomable mystery at the heart of the Christian life: God's love for us and God's call to us to love one another constitutes the essential ingredient of our faith.

Loving God

Yes, the most important truth about every person -- young or old, rich or poor, liberal or conservative, brilliant or intellectually challenged, black, white, red, yellow or brown -- is that God is deeply in love with that person.

Whatever else we might think about an individual, the most important insight we can have about every person is that God's love totally surrounds his or her life.

God does not love a person because the person is lovable. Rather, the person is lovable because God loves him or her.

Free gift

There is nothing we can do to earn, merit His love or win God's love. It is a pure gift. All we need do is accept it.

Amazingly, even when we do not accept it, God does not stop loving us. When we were created, God made a commitment to love us, and He will never withdraw that love.

We can always rely upon His love and count on it without any reservation or qualification.

Perfect love

Reflecting on this central truth of the pope's encyclical, Father Robert Lauder wrote, in The Brooklyn Tablet, about a point a retreat-master made which had a profound impression upon him. The retreat-master said, "God will never love you more than He does at this moment."

Initially, Father Lauder was stunned by this assertion. How can this be, he wondered? "If I say more prayers, won't God love me more? If I work harder, won't God love me more? If I am a better priest, won't God love me more?"

The answer to those questions, as Pope Benedict's encyclical makes clear, is "no." God cannot love us more than He loves us at this moment because He loves us infinitely right now.

God's passion

God is passionately in love with us. That's a joyous and incredible message, which God has revealed to us in the Scriptures.

Imagine what would happen if we really believed this about ourselves and if we could help others believe it as well.

At a time in the history of the world when the name of God is so often associated with hatred and revenge, it is critically important that we grasp the essence of the pope's encyclical: that God is love, and that He lavishes love upon each of us totally, completely, gratuitously and unconditionally.

Sharing love

The second part of Pope Benedict's encyclical is that we, in turn, must share God's love with others.

Some in the Church feel that, since the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, our faith has become too easy, too soft. They seem to think there should be more emphasis in our catechesis on sin and on a God to be feared, rather than underscoring the importance of love in the Christian life.

I strongly disagree with the assumption underlying that perspective: that love is easy and not very demanding. I'm not talking about a romantic, superficial love that can find its expression only in sexual pleasure or narrow personal preoccupations. Rather, I'm talking of the love of which Pope Benedict writes and of which St. Paul speaks in his letter to the Corinthians; a love that seeks to transform self-centeredness into self-giving care and concern for others.

Selfless love

Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, whose cause for beatification is being considered by the Church, put it this way: "Love is a harsh and dreadful thing."

Indeed, it is, because love means dying to self and putting other people first, which is something none of us ever finds easy.

But, as the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ proclaims so well, dying to self, and living a life of love and service on behalf of others can lead to a rich and meaningful journey in this life -- and to an eternity of life with our God of love in the next.

Unending love

In sum, human existence is an adventure of love. We are created by Love, and our goal is eternal union with Love, to be attained through loving others, as God first loved us.

That's the core message that we must grasp, integrate into our lives and communicate to others.

We must recognize that the alcoholic spouse, the ungrateful child, the selfish friend, the belligerent boss, the annoying co-worker, the cranky neighbor, the mentally ill homeless person, the crack addict, the reprehensible terrorist and anyone with whom we strongly disagree or whose lifestyle we reject is someone who is truly loved by God -- and, therefore, richly deserving of our love, care and concern.

Challenges

Granted, that's a difficult challenge. Granted, there is the natural tendency to be hurt by rejection, to be disappointed by human frailty and to be defensive of one's own perspective, or to become judgmental and self-righteous.

Granted, too, that, at times, we must draw the line by opposing behavior that is unacceptable morally or socially, and by refusing to enable people who are hurting themselves or others.

But even when challenging someone, correcting them or distancing ourselves from them, we must never demonize the other person or forget that he or she is made in the image and likeness of God. To do so is to miss the mystery of God's love and fail to appreciate the full meaning of John's Gospel, which tells us that, if we claim to love God and do not love the people around us, we are liars.

Common good

Further, we must understand that our outreach in love to others must be extended not only to individuals but also to the common good.

As Christians, therefore, we must provide "the spiritual energy" for sparking public-policy initiatives like immigration, health care and criminal justice reform domestically, and international efforts to combat poverty, and to promote global solidarity, justice and peace.

In this brief reflection, I have only scratched the surface of Pope Benedict's moving encyclical. I urge all to read and re-read his inspirational message. I believe it has the power to be life-changing personally -- and life-transforming for our Church, world and society.

(The encyclical can be found at www.vatican.va.)

(9/14/06) [[In-content Ad]]