If all the bibles in the world were destroyed except one, and even if that one was badly damaged so that only one page was left. And even on that page if you could only read three words, if those three words were the words in John’s Gospel which say, ‘God is love’, then the whole message of the bible would be saved.
This is what the whole teaching of our faith is about and what the whole bible is about, that God loves his people in a way that we really don’t understand and can’t make a whole lot of sense of. But it is from the love of God that we ourselves learn to love. We are only able to love God because He loved us first. He loved us before we loved him. He made himself known to us before we discovered him. And God is constantly teaching us how to love and what it means to love. He teaches us through married life, through religious life, through single life, through relationships and dealing with other people.
I once worked in a jewellery store and I learnt that there is a method used to polish precious stones where they are put into a container together with grit and then they are shaken at high speed and they polish each other. They knock the corners off each other, so to speak. I think this is a good analogy for our own lives. We are continually going through different trials and struggles and all of them are forming us for better or worse, depending on how we respond to them. We knock the corners off each other and hopefully come out sparkling. We are formed and shaped by our relationships with each other. We rub off each other, but that is how we grow.
I have often noticed in hospitals that younger people are more demanding. Older people were generally more patient. They have been through so much and it has formed them into better people.
Today, the meaning of love has been greatly distorted. Through social media we are mostly being told that love is mainly about erotic, or sexual love and that if you are not sexually active, you cannot be fulfilled. We are not told as much about love as self-giving love: sacrificing ourselves for the other. We are told that love is about my fulfilment and if I am not fulfilled, then I should move on. That is one of the reasons why marriage vows in a church, and religious vows, are so important. It brings God into the equation. When we are struggling, we turn to God and ask God’s help to give of ourselves. Sometimes I say that to a couple when they are getting married: ‘Do you realize that your marriage is not about your fulfilment? It is about you sacrificing yourselves for each other; laying down your lives for each other.’
This is what Jesus was teaching the Apostles: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ Jesus’ love was all-giving for the other, for us and the ultimate sacrifice of shedding his blood. We tend to say, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Even coming to mass on Sunday, the thinking is often the wrong one. We ask, ‘What’s in it for me?’ That’s the wrong question. The mass is not about what’s in it for me, even though we receive Jesus himself in each mass, but it’s about making the sacrifice of our time to worship and acknowledge God. God asks us to give of ourselves.
Our mission, from God, is to love one another. ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ That is our main task as followers of Christ, to love the people around us. And Jesus tells us that that is how other people will recognise us as Christian, by the way we love. It makes us different from many other people, but that is what God calls us to do.
Our country and our world is becoming increasingly materialistic and selfish. Everything is for me only, never mind anyone else. That is the opposite of what God teaches us. Does it mean that we have to give away everything we own and join a religious order? Of course not. Only a few people are called to do this. Most of us are simply called to live wherever we find ourselves and bring Christ to people by the way we love. It is easy for us to be afraid to help or look out for others because it might put us at risk and this is true. But God asks us to take that risk.
At the same time a young religious sister was walking in the slums of Calcutta and came across a group of children. She asked them if they would like to learn how to read. They joyfully said yes! So she took a piece of chalk and began to write on the ground, teaching them how to read. This was Mother Teresa at the beginning of her work in Calcutta. The man was despairing about the whole situation. She began with small steps.
We cannot change the world and all its problems: the poverty, wars, etc. But we can affect the people around us. It is easy to become cynical and say that there is no point, because the problems are too great. But there is always a point, which is what God is teaching us. We are where the Lord has put us and we do what we can in the situation we find ourselves. That is what God calls us to do.
I would like to finish with this reflection, which I think sums all this up. I think it is a great prayer or thought, especially when you find yourself starting to get cynical about everything.
Anyway
(From a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan,
the children’s home in Calcutta.)
People are unreasonable, illogical and selfcentered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help, but may attack you if you help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never
between you and them anyway.
(from the book, ‘A Simple Path’)