“….Everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.” True love comes from God and unites us to God. Do we embody the divine love in our lives?
What is an authentic love, a love that is from God and unites us to God? It is a love that is richly compassionate and a love that is a complete gift of oneself. It is a love that embraces the poor and the outcasts of the world. It is a love that is merciful and forgiving. It is a love that offers comfort and consolation to those who are grieving, to those who are suffering, and to those for whom the burdens of life are too great. This is the divine love. When such love is made present in our world in and through us, then we can truthfully say that we are born of God and that we know God, that is, we are in a real and rich relationship with God. All of us struggle to be instruments of the divine love in our world. It is not easy for us to love as God loves – freely, generously, compassionately, mercifully, and with a profound concern for the poor and forgotten of this world. But all of us must strive to make this love real in our world through our lives.
Many of us were blessed with mothers who were, or who are, the incarnation of the love of God for us. In their deep compassion, their faithful love, their gentle and consoling presence, they were a revelation of the divine love to us. We experienced in them the same love that God has for us. And this is a gentle reminder to us that we can truthfully say that God is father and mother of us all. Sadly, there are some mothers who are not able –for a host of reasons- to be an instrument of the divine love for their children and for the world. For men and women in such situations, God asks that they not judge their mothers harshly but find it in their hearts to appreciate the gift of life that their mothers gave them and not harbor resentment or bitterness toward them. None of us are perfect or consistent in our incarnation of the divine love! Given the terrible turmoil in our world, it is all the more urgent that each of us seek to embody the divine love in our lives for it is only such love that can heal our badly broken world.