Meditation for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost – Gospel: Luke 6:31-36
“Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.“
Love is the most common word exchanged between people, but it is also the most elastic in use. Perhaps we will not find anyone who does not claim to love, and perhaps we will not find many who truly love.
The most important thing in a person’s life is his relationships with others. Successful relationships give him peace and joy; failed relationships become a source of pain and turmoil. A successful relationship is one that bears the fruits of the Spirit, joy, love and peace: it is a relationship built on “mercy”, that is, love. But love has many degrees.
The first form of love is “instinctive” or “natural” love, like that between members of a family, the instinct between a mother and her son, a father and his children. This instinctive, family love is a very strong and sacred bond: how often it has bound people together for many years, built up joys, shared comfort and created wonderful human relationships! But often it proves imperfect: some love kills. How many mothers have loved their child to the point of harming him, because by instinct they love to satisfy themselves! Instinctive love is a noble bond, but it always needs to be sanctified and purified. This natural love is often easily broken by self-interest: how often money has divided brothers, and the details of life have set family members against one another!
The second form of love is “social love”, which grows out of social relationships, at school, at work, in companies and activities. It depends even more on circumstances than the first. Often the inevitable change of circumstances in life makes it a love of only a few days, a passing love, if it is not killed along the way by the blows of selfishness, interests and quarrels.
All these forms of love, instinctive and social, are easily broken, because they expect something for themselves in loving. That is their shortcoming, despite their beauty. Social love is what Jesus pointed to in the Gospel: “If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same.” And instinctive love is in his words: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.”
The secret of love’s success in Christianity is “perfect” love, which expects nothing for itself. It is “spiritual” love, neither instinctive nor social, but built on a Christian foundation that makes the one who carries it gentle and merciful like his merciful heavenly Father. A love that loves because it is love, that does not trade or wait for a return. A love that loves as the Lord loves us. A love that is able to love because it draws its strength from Christ’s love.
The most accurate measure of anyone’s love is love of enemies. Such a love is unknown to instinct or nature, to custom or systems; it is known only to a heart like the heart of the merciful Lord, because it asks absolutely nothing for itself. It is a love not subject to the swings of instinct or the changes of circumstances and social relationships, because it is a love given by the Holy Spirit. It is the love of a spiritual person whom the Spirit has filled with grace and peace and who cannot help but love. It is not a love of circumstances but the love of a compassionate heart. It is a love formed by divine grace, not by nature. It is the perfect love that sees in every person the face of a beloved, a child of the Most High and a brother of Jesus, the firstborn Son.
Natural love and social love are beginnings of perfect love, which must be their goal. The divine Word, together with holiness of life – in poverty of spirit – transforms the first two forms into the luminous truth of perfect love. How beautiful a mother’s instinctive love is when it is purified by the Spirit, like the Virgin’s love for Christ! And how good are social relationships that build spiritual relationships!
Love is more than a passing relationship. Love is the mystery of mercy: it transforms a person’s presence from instinct or social relationship into a Christian personality like his merciful heavenly Father.
Amen.
Fr. Gerard Abi Saab
