Love, Love, Love…

Fr. Johnson Maria

Feel awkward to see the title? Yeah, naturally! Why are some words repeated three times? Probably just to capture your attention. Don’t you think this group of four letters L O V E is the most wonderful and most important thing in the world?

Wisdom, knowledge, faith, hope and many other great virtues and spiritual achievements are just dwarfs before this small thing called “Love” (Cf. 2 Cor 13,2). It is everywhere, in every person, every creature and in everything that exists, because “it is out of love that God created the world.” In the absence of love, life is not ‘life.’ This small little thing is so important, yet we rarely give it a deep thought. Can you name me anybody, anything or any creature that is totally strange to this thing called ‘Love?’ you know it is because of your love for wisdom or knowledge that you keep on reading things like this article.

Love can be defined in different ways, depending on the context. It has got different meanings. For instance, love between, the so-called “lovers” has a different meaning, whereas love between parents and children, has a different meaning, et cetera. Probably you know all these types of love already and may be you will be irritated at my lack of detailed knowledge about all these. But have you noticed one thing? All these kinds of love are conditioned by time, place and situation, hence not long lasting. Yet they are sufficient to give us some idea about Love.

You must have experienced love of your parents, love of your kith and kin, even love of “friends.” But you must have realized that the love of these persons in our life, is not everlasting, or at least it does not last for long. If we go to the “ultimate cause” of love, we find that ‘God is the source of all love, only His love is everlasting. God says, “I loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer 31,3b). We have a door opened to us for everlasting love, just free of cost, so, should we run behind anything else that is temporary?

Though we are not worthy, yet God has called us to be the instruments of His everlasting, unconditional love. And it is because of this love that we are called children of God. “See what love Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are” (1 Jn 3,1). It is not that God has suddenly started to love us, but He has been loving us from the very beginning. Our very existence is because of His love for us. “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom. 5,5).

Have we ever realized the presence of God’s precious love in our hearts? If we have realized then it is our bounden duty to express this love in our actions and our behaviour, and if still we have no serious interest in feeling and experiencing His love then “get up and come back to Him” and ask Him to give us grace to experience His love because if we don’t experience His True love then what else is there to speak about, to the others?