To Love Is To Give

Love is principally a serious commitment of obedience to God’s will.

We need to have a relationship with God because we love Him, not because of what we can gain but because we want to do His will strictly to make Him happy….without expecting any form of gratification

The absolute measurement of love is in giving. In the Gospel the verb to love is always associated with the verb to give (there’s no greater love than to give one’s life); to give food, clothing, to give of your time, your life, everything, because the only measurement of love is to love without measuring what you get in return.

For Jesus, to love means to give one’s life for your friend. For Jesus, your friend means all, even those that we don’t know, that are not friendly to us, even those who are trying to crucify us.

The love that Jesus demands of us is the one demonstrated by the good Samaritan, who saw, dared to get close and had compassion; one who immediately intervened to clean and bandage the wounds, who put him on a donkey to take him to get medical attention and who stayed with him until the following day; one who cared enough to make sure to complete the solution to the problem.

This is what Jesus commands of us with ALL, EVERY day.

Can we honestly say that love exists among the people who pray, who go to Mass and who do other good works? Once upon a time observers of Christians would say, “Look how they love each other?” Do these observers say the same of us today? Today we are defined as “Those who go to Mass.”

If we were to take Jesus’ commandment seriously, to be defined as such wouldn’t be a fitting model for Christians.

We need to return where we can be identified as, “Look how they love each other.” Only then will Jesus’ joy be in us fully. The one who loves sows the seeds of joy with his hands, wipes away tears and frees the oppressed, giving a family to those who don’t have one. That’s when we will have true faith.