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| Love Is Giving... |
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Read
Fr. Landi's story of conversion--Fr. Joe Landi:
Out of the World and Into the
Kingdom-- His journey to priesthood by Rissa Singson. |
The word love is so casually used that its importance has been lost in our pop-culture. Some examples: “I love what you’ve done to your hair.” “I love rum-raisin ice cream.” “Don’t you just love the new CD of the Backstreet Boys?”
However, the importance of the word love for Christians is dramatized by Jesus’ commandment: “Love one another as I love you.”
The importance of the word love and the commandment from Jesus is noted by Paul in Romans 13:10, “Love is the fulfillment of the law.” It is not important in how we use the word in speech but how we incorporate the spirit of the word into our daily lives that fulfills the law. For it is in the fulfillment that we remain in His love and our joy of living is complete.Love for Christians, the kind of love Jesus describes when he says, “Love one another as I love you,” is summed up in the acts of giving: self-giving, forgiving and thanksgiving. In fact, “to love one another” is the whole foundation of the Christian Church.
Self-giving
Self-giving service is a hallmark of Christian love. In giving of our time, talents and treasure, as we are called to do because we are disciples by our baptism, do we have a posture or an attitude of service or one of ego building? It is in the attitude of how we give that we fulfill the law. According to a recent survey by Newsweek Magazine, teens are showing us the way. More than half of them give of their time and talents as volunteer to do work in their communities more than once a month, and a quarter of them do so more than once a week.How we give of ourselves in the ordinary activities of our daily lives at home, work or school reflect whether or not we carry the life-giving spiritual nourishment of Christ’s love in the giving of our time and talents.
How we give of our treasure is also a weather vane, which points to whether we are giving in the right posture. Is our sacrificial giving planned or haphazard. Tithing is an important aspect of Christian charity. Remember the widow's mite? If we are not contributing regularly by using the envelope system, when the collection plate comes and the smallest denomination we have is a $50, what we do and how we feel about what we do is a good determination of what god we trust in and whether we have fulfilled the law.
Forgiving
Forgiving is also a hallmark of Christian love. Forgiving is also one of the most difficult aspects of Christian love to perform. Because we are human we carry burdens not only of our sins against others but theirs against us. We can receive forgiveness for our sins through the sacrament of reconciliation. However, we too often carry the sins against us as if they are some badge of courage. They are not. They are only excess baggage that slow a Christian’s journey to the Kingdom.In his joy, Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit for forgiveness that his joy might be ours. He also reminds us that we must be ready to forgive others and that the forgiveness not be only once or twice or even seven times but “seventy times seven times.” The truth is that we are set free from that burden of carrying sins against us and it is in our very act of forgiveness of those sins against us that we experience the joy of forgiving and fulfill the law.
Thanksgiving
Another hallmark of Christian love is thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is perhaps the most important of the aspects of Christian love, for it is in thanksgiving that we exhibit our love of God.
Jesus called love of God the most important of the commandments. We should begin each day with “Thank you Lord for this day”. The minutes and hours during it should be a canopy of thanksgiving. A thank you— for the food from his bounty, for the sunshine, the fog, or the rain, for the smiles and frowns, for the opportunity to show that we are his followers in how we treat those people whom he has brought into our lives—if for no other reason than to give us an opportunity to fulfill the law. Let our thanksgiving be so that from the rising of the sun to its setting, we Christians proclaim that Jesus Christ is our Lord by what we say and do as we strive for the perfection of Christian.
And at the end of the day let our prayer be, “Lord, thank you for this day, I tried to live it your way. If you want me to try again tomorrow, wake me for breakfast.”