Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Love Unconditionally

I'm sorry I haven't posted for about a week and a half; my frequent "Winter Visitor"--AKA 'severe' colds--has had me pretty much bed-ridden for that time. I haven't neglected praying with the readings for the day, but I haven't felt well enough to write reflections. Here is my reflection on the first reading today.

================================

By loving others, we come to know God. This means that when an irritating person angers us and we respond with an argument or retaliation or anything else unloving, we don't know God well enough. If we knew him better, we'd be appalled at the idea of treating anyone that way, no matter what they've done.

When we fight off the impulse to strike back at those who hurt and dismay us, responding to every person in every situation with unconditional love, forgiveness, patience, and (if possible) an act of kindness, we gain a fuller understanding of God, because this is how he treats us, whether we deserve it or not.

Unconditional love does not mean that we tolerate evil. It means doing good to troublemakers while standing firm behind the boundaries of truth that keep us united to God. Our boundaries invite other people to trade up to a holier, healthier life. This is how God deals with our sinfulness; thus, by doing to others what the Lord does to us, we learn more about him. We develop a better understanding of how he rejects sin while embracing the sinner.

To understand God better, we must love those who are the most difficult to love, since God is Love Itself. When we categorize certain people as outside the realm of those whom we will love, this comes from our ignorance about God's way of embracing diversity. By condemning them as unworthy of our attention and time, we use that as permission to ignore them and avoid them, which is so unlike God that this could only happen because we don't know him.

God loves you and me so much that he doesn't leave us in this mess of ignorance! The Father gave us Jesus as an offering -- an expiation -- for our sins (1 John 4:7-10). When we fail to love everyone all the time, we're relying on our feelings and our limited human ability to love, which is very inadequate. To succeed at love, we have to rely on the ability of Jesus to love. We have to let him supernaturally love others through us.

To succeed at love, we have to rely on what love truly is: It is God's gift to us. He loves you so much that the Father sent the Son to take your sins upon himself in an awesome deed of great suffering and sacrifice. Such a powerful love never fails. When loving others is difficult, get in touch with God's love for you. He wants to kiss your wounds and heal your heart and defend your goodness.

No comments:

"I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from it.

I am giving you three ways of exercising mercy toward your neighbor:
the first — by deed, the second — by word, the third — by prayer. In these three degrees is contained the fullness of mercy, and it is an unquestionable proof of love for Me. By this means a soul glorifies and pays reverence to My mercy.

Many souls ... are often worried because they do not have the material means with which to carry out an act of mercy. Yet spiritual mercy, which requires neither permissions nor storehouses, is much more meritorious and is within the grasp of every soul.

If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain My mercy on the day of judgment. Oh, if only souls knew how to gather eternal treasure for themselves, they would not be judged, for they would forestall My judgment with their mercy".