Monday, March 5, 2007
Giving and Commitment
(By Rev. Fr. Marcial Maciel, LC)
Look at Christ on the Cross and learn from him what it means truly to love. He did not redeem us with promises, feelings of compassion or desires to give himself, or with his high-sounding words; and he could have done so, since he was God. But, since he loved us and love is gift without limits, he willed to show us his love by loving us with concrete acts: becoming man, living and suffering our human condition, giving himself out of love for his Father and each one of us, obeying, forgiving, turning the other cheek, enduring terrible humiliations in silence, offering his back to the fury of the whip, opening his hands to be pierced ... out of love for me, to save me.
Otherwise, where else would the martyrs have found the courage to die with pardon on their lips and praising God if they did not have before them the words and example of Christ’s death? What would happen to the dying and the sick if in the midst of their suffering they could not clasp the crucifix in their hands? How could we fulfill God’s will in our daily lives, especially when it causes our hearts to bleed, if Christ in Gethsemane had preferred his will to his Father’s, without his It is consummated from the Cross (John 19:30)?
How easily we deceive ourselves thinking that we love God when in reality we take love for an emotion, a moment of psychological freedom or an occasional burst of generosity! There is so much egoism disguised as love! So when you want to know if you really and truly love, look at Christ crucified. If your love is like his, that is, total self-giving with concrete deeds, then your love is authentic, and you are real Christians. It might well be that you don’t have lots of feelings and emotions, that at times your love stands on the rock of a faith stripped of all human consolation, but it is love because there is giving and commitment.
Labels: Lent, Spirituality
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