Love is just gift. Pure gift.

 I’ve had many thoughts today about love after reading a passage from Mark’s Gospel [Mark 8:14-21], realizing today is Valentine’s Day, and that Sunday was the beginning of National Marriage week!

If you google the phrase “inspiring quotes about love” you’ll find there are over 330 million entries!  I found one particular site that lists over 2000 quotes from some famous (and not so famous) people about what love is.  It was evident that many of them never truly experienced love.  They all described “feelings” and “emotions” and “romance”.  Love certainly contains those things.  But true love is indescribable.  It goes beyond romance and feelings and emotions.  It must be lived.  You don’t think about it, you just do it.

This indescribable love is the love I have for my wife of nearly fifty years.

I think about Marilyn all day every day and about what keeps our love for each other so strong.  I think it’s because we’ve never had to “work” at our love.  It just exists.  You hear stories of people who say, “Our love grows every day”, or “We work hard to keep our love this strong.”  I guess God has blessed us, because my love for Marilyn is just as strong today as it was when I proposed to her, and it’s never been an effort for me to be in love or to stay in love with her.

This indescribable love is the love I have for my children and my grandchildren.

When we arrive in a room with small children, the child looks for the adult with a smile, the one who is open and friendly—the simple detective work of one hunting and searching for love.

Children detect hostility, unfriendliness, and those who are unauthentic in a way that’s beyond words. Their agenda is simple; there is no agenda.  There’s no duality in their thinking, just looking for the one who is most friendly, open, and willing to love.  “Come play with me” is mostly present in their eyes.

How much of this can we learn again in our relationship with God?  How many have fallen prey to following the tradition rather than the love?  Our Catholic tradition without love is meaningless.  Particularly if we start to “preach” tradition in a way that divides us from others rather than unites us in the community of God; the Body of Christ.  The Church is universal.

This indescribable love is the love I have for my fellow human beings.

The word Catholic means universal.  For us, this is universal love, and there is nowhere we can feel and hear that word more soundly than in love expressed by a child.  A child can’t fend for themselves; they survive only with love.  So do I.  Without love, I’m nothing, just someone looking for a cave to dwell in with a warm fire and a loving friend.

The loving friend we seek is the same one the child in the room opens their heart towards.  The love expressed by the adult in the room is filled with the grace of God.  And one willing to communicate it freely, willingly with the smile which requires no repayment.  Just gift.  Pure gift.

Let’s unlearn the prejudices and offer ourselves openly to listen to others, even offer love to those we dislike, without scowls or pretense.  The child in us all brings us back to the “Beginners Mind”, when we didn’t judge, but loved.

And sat silently on the floor waiting for God to come and play with us.  Forever.

The disciples need this reminder in today’s Gospel.  To trust in God.