Merriam-Webster
defines love as “a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person.” St.
Thomas Aquinas, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC #1766) define love
as more than a “feeling”: “To love is to will the good of the other”. In other words, love is more than having
powerful feelings for another person.
Love is an act of the will, regardless of one’s “feelings.” This is a simple definition of love. It isn’t complicated. This is how God loves us and how we are to
love one another.
Even if we’re
unfamiliar with Aquinas’ definition, we still can know love by what it looks
like. We recognize it when we see
it. We see it when a parent cares for a
child with patience, tenderness, and unconditional acceptance. We see it in relationships involving
compassion, and self-sacrifice.
In the Book
of the Prophet Hosea, God called the Israelites out of Egypt. The Lord compared the Israelites to a child
whom He took in His arms, taught to walk, fed, and protected on their journey. “The
Lord says, my heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred.”
Despite their failings, God loved them (Hosea 11:1-9).
In the
Letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 3:8-19), Saint Paul prays for the love of
the Father, strength of the Holy Spirit, and the indwelling of Jesus, “so
that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all
the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know
the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with
all the fullness of God.” God’s love is fundamental to all
other gifts.
And John’s
Gospel (John 19:31-37) reminds us of God’s ultimate act of love. During His passion, Christ held each of us in
His heart of love. The Lamb of God was
led to the slaughter and sacrificed for our sins. True love has little to do with one’s
feelings. It has to do with the
commitment of the will to seek the good of the other person, even when those
feelings aren’t there. The Solemnity of
the Most Sacred Heart is all about love.
Christ suffered and died for us.
This is how God loves us. This is
how we’re to love one another – with all our imperfections, with all our
failings, and brokenness.
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