bukas palad: May 2008

How do you know you’ve acted in love for another person?

This is a question my brother, Carl, and I discussed a few Sundays ago. We agreed that the answer many of us will have will be something like this: “I act in love when I choose to do what is good for the other’s wellbeing.”

This however can hide a selfishness we are all guilty of from time to time: the perception of the good we say the other needs is in fact mine. Consider the charity we do for the poor and helpless: don’t we sometimes say “this is what I feel they need and this is we ought to do for them”?

When we act out of what we feel the other needs, we will do kind acts and speak comforting words. But we may not love truly.

Indeed, how can we truly love a sister in word and deed unless we are first willing to step into her shoes and appreciate what she really needs? And isn’t the true love I have for my brother realized more fully when I am open enough to listen to him and to see with his eyes his deepest desire that I must honestly minister to?

That to love another means sacrificing what I judge to be the right and correct thing I must do challenges you and me to admit that true love for another involves sacrifice. It demands first of all a self-sacrifice of how I see and understand the person before me as he honestly is.

If the above is true, then, our acts of loving another cannot originate with me. Rather, they begin with others, especially, the needy and the forgotten, the outcast and the lesser, who call me to be there for and with them. They will call me out of my false sense of charity. They call me to go beyond myself, beyond my perception of how I am to love my friend. Then, I can begin to love authentically. When I can do this, I respect my friend as he is, one like me, yet one who is unique and individual and who I am invited into responsible friendship with.

Jesus died on the Cross in order that we will have eternal life. This is the fullness of the self-sacrifice of loving another. In loving us, Jesus’ action gives life. This gift also redeems and celebrates that we are more than sinful people to him; we are his beloved friends.

If we take Jesus’ example of love seriously, we will find ourselves challenged to give life to the persons and relationships that are now stagnant, soured or dead in our lives. These are so because our fears and pettiness, our arrogance and stubbornness, our past hurts and disappointments have infected them. To these human frailties, Jesus’ self-sacrifice presents us with the hopeful belief that darkness will give way to light. This is posssible for you and me because at the heart of sacrifice is a love that transfigures.

Perhaps, we can ask ourselves, Is there someone I am at odds with that I should lay down my life for so that he can live more fully?

photo: st wilfred's church, harrogate by mig_r

bukas palad

with open hands, we give what we have first received. and with open hands, we receive what we will divest, once again. this is blessing itself: the giving and receiving of life and love, the sharing of faith and God.

Pentecost

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Love and Sacrifice

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