This “unconditional love” that God has for each one of us, whether we are his friends or his enemies, in good times and in bad, sounds like our traditional wedding vows! It is the template for how we are to love each other, whether they are good or bad, our friends or our enemies! Loving each other, like God loves us, is the very heart and essence of our Christian faith. This love is not based on the feelings we have for each other, but on the choices we make about how we want to respond to each other, day in and day out!
It might surprise you to know that the last fifty-six years of my life has been about trying my best to love other people, even unlovable people, “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, until death do us part” and thereby set an example for them about God’s unconditional love for all of us. To free me up to do this, to be able to focus mainly on that, I made a Promise of Celibacy.
Celibates can live without sex, but they cannot live without loving others and being loved by them. Just as one can have sex without love, one can love without sex. A “close loving relationship” is called “intimacy.” Intimacy requires sharing oneself deeply with others, sometimes with sex and more often without it. Love involves developing caring connections with people. A deeply caring connection is fundamental to truly “loving” anyone!
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that there are two Sacraments geared toward the salvation of others: Marriage and Holy Orders. That means marriage partners and those who are ordained are both called to be “love-givers.” Marriage partners are called to be “love-givers” mainly to their spouses and their children. Those who are ordained are called to be “love-givers” mainly to that part of the church entrusted to them by the bishop in whatever ministry they are assigned. We are both called to be “love-givers” - love-givers to both friends and enemies, no matter what, whether it feels good or not, on any particular day! Love is not a feeling you have, but a decision you make.
I am proud to say that I have a wide-range of intimate friends! I am friends with people I grew up with, with people I went to seminary with, with people I have met in ministry and with people I have met from various countries all over the world. I have women friends, long-time friends both male and female, whole-family friends, friends from other religions, friends without any religion, rich friends and poor friends, educated and uneducated friends, new friends, old friends and friends who used to be enemies.
Jesus talked a lot, and often, about the importance of the word “love.” In our American culture, we talk a lot, and often, about the word “love” as well. Even though we both throw the word “love” around a lot, we are not talking about the same reality.
When we talk about “love” in our culture, we mean “having strong feelings of attraction for someone or something.” We say, things like “I “love” my girlfriend ever since we “fell in love.” I “love” the way she looks and the way she talks. We “love” the same movies, books and music. What the person is actually saying there is that he is “attracted” to everything about her – from her looks to her tastes. “Love” in that context is basically a “feeling” one has – usually a “feeling of attraction for” this or that!
Because it is basically a “feeling of attraction for,” that kind of so-called “love” can shift, wane and even disappear. Because it is based on “feelings,” a person who easily “falls in love,” can also “fall out of love” just as easily. Because it is based on “feelings,” it is basically “self-centered.” At its core, it really expresses what that old 1990s Toyota commercial said about their cars: “I love what you do for me!” A more precise word for that experience is “cathexis,” meaning an intense investment of mental or emotional energy in a person or object. A person under the spell of “cathexis” has an almost blind fixation or an obsession with another person, object or idea for “what it can do for them.”
That’s not at all what Jesus meant when he talked about “love.” When Jesus talked about “love,” he was not talking about a “feeling,” he was talking about a “decision.” When Jesus talked about “love,” he talked about making a decision to take loving and constructive action toward a person that he or she may consciously dislike or even find repugnant in some way! To “love,” in the way Jesus talks about it, goes beyond any feelings. It rises to the level of a conscious “decision” and that decision is not “self-centered, but “other centered.”
The teaching about “love” in our second reading today is quite powerful! God's “love” is unconditional - God’s actions toward us in spite of our actions toward God. True “love” is not focused on what we receive, but on what we give! That is the relationship God wants to have with us – a mutual unconditional relationship of love with friends and enemies! Love is not a feeling you have, but a decision you make.
Let me give you
two practical examples of true “other focused” love - one from the lives of some of
the families I have known and the other example from my own life.
EXAMPLE ONE
I am reminded, first of all, by a quote from the Gospel of John that says, “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Yes, it certainly refers to the love God had for us when we see how Jesus laid down his life for us! However, what also comes to my mind is the love many parents have for their children. These parents are the most loving people I have ever encountered. They are willing to lay down their lives every day for their children. I am not referring to that common practice of crippling children by constantly giving into their whims and spoiling them, rather than training them in self-discipline. Spoiling them is not real love, that’s self-love and protecting themselves from not being liked by their children!
It takes a lot of
other-focused love to raise a child well because raising a child into a thriving adult requires
teaching them reliability, generosity, consistency, independence,
responsibility, maturity, self-confidence and kindness by promoting positive
behaviors, being clear about expectations, adopting positive language, modeling
good behavior, offering them choices, helping them deal with the consequences
of their own choices, showing them how to do active listening, reinforcing
positive values and correcting them when they do wrong. These actions and this teaching, year in and
year out, is the essence of real love. Doing that, day in and day out, does not
always feel good! It requires a great amount of attention and concentration! That
kind of love does not always result in a positive response from their children, like feeling appreciated by the very children
they are teaching and forming into thriving adults!
EXAMPLE TWO
The second example of “love,” from my own life, involves the decisions I made when I retired. I have been taught my whole life that retirement is a time to sit back, relax, enjoy oneself and be pampered. I did not know exactly what I wanted to do when I retired, but I definitely knew I did not want to do that!
For my 80th birthday, a wealthy friend of mine offered to plan a birthday party for me. As a priest, I have been called to be a “love-giver” more than a “love-getter” so I told her “no” because that year, in gratitude for making it to my 80th birthday with so much to be grateful for, I wanted to “give,” rather than “receive.” I told her that, in celebration, I wanted to personally underwrite the Diocese of Kingstown’s annual diocesan Christmas party down in the poor country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines where I used to volunteer until COVID hit and their volcano exploded. The bishop down there usually gives his 12 priests, 4 Religious Sisters, 4 Religious Brothers, 7 Deacons and 4 Chancery Staff members a bottle of inexpensive wine, a ham and a small monetary gift. I heard that his diocesan finances were so limited that year, where the minimum wage is $12.00 a day, that he would have to cut back and not be able to give them a small monetary gift that year. So, starting with my $1,000.00 tax refund, I decided on a personal goal of underwriting his whole diocesan Christmas party, as well as be able to give all 40 of them a small monetary gift.
I was so grateful on my 80th birthday, that I had a burning desire to “give” love, rather than “receive” it!” In our country where “love” is more and more about something we “receive,” rather than something we “give,” I wanted to go against that trend and be that “love-giver” that I am supposed to be as a priest! Giving, rather than receiving, is what really made me happy on my 80th birthday so that is what I did!
After that, rather than me traveling the world and enjoying myself on some beach, I decided to help build a church in Kenya, a home for a single mother and a new grade school in Tanzania (which opened last Thursday with its first 25 students and 35 more expected by January) while helping out in two nursing homes. two parishes, publishing my four times a week inspirational blog posts and leading short parish retreats here in the diocese.
In telling you this, it is not my hope to get you to admire me for doing those things, but that these two examples will inspire you to perform similar “love-giving” actions, for your family, friends, strangers and even your enemies! That, my friends, is what real love is all about! As the Book of Proverbs says, “Those who water others, will themselves be watered.” Real love is not an exchange of warm feelings between you and somebody else! Love is not a feeling you have, but a decision you make. Real love is a “decision” you make to do good to others, even to those who cannot, or will not, be good to you!