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Tag: Ways of Loving

  • Imitating God by living in love

    Imitating God by living in love

    October 24, 2022 – Monday 30th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102422.cfm)

    We constantly hear that God is love and that through love we are all created in God’s image and likeness. Also through love, God sent His only Son to redeem the world. Though we often read or listen about this fundamental grace of love in our faith to the point that it is somehow treated like a cliché, the grace of love and the act of loving remain constant call for us.

    This is what Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, reminding and calling the believers in that city to “be imitators of God and to live in love.” What Paul means about imitating God is not in the way of becoming “like god” or “being god” which may connote “domination, overpowering and subjugating” others.

    Rather, what we are all called to imitate is the way of LOVING, hence, Paul said, “live in love.” What kind of love is this then?

    This is love that sacrifices one’s life for the sake of others. Such love never corrupts others or brings others to danger or to evil. This love has the capacity to offer life so that others may also have life.

    This is love that generates life and does not suppress the life of others. This means that this way of loving brings inspiration and motivation for others to live fully because of the love they receive.

    This is love that frees or unburdens others because such love only desires freedom, peace, reconciliation and the fullness of life. This also means that this way of loving forgives and heals.

    These are all God’s way of loving of which the Responsorial Psalm also calls us today, to behave like God and that is to be able to learn love-sacrificing, love-generating and love-freeing ways of God.

    In fact, in today’s Gospel, Jesus showed this to us as he healed a woman. Thus, Jesus showed kindness and compassion to the woman who was suffering for 18 long years. Jesus’ kindness and compassion went beyond the restrictions of human law. Though, the local leader of the synagogue was indignant to Jesus’ way of loving, yet, this did not stop Jesus to truly express his love so that the woman may have life.

    With that, Jesus freed her from that suffering by touching her. Through his touch, an expression of his way of loving, he freed the woman from the spirit that crippled her over those many years.

    By this way of loving of Jesus, the Lord restored her hope to live by giving her the fullness of life expressed in the way the woman responded to Jesus. The woman got up, stoop up straight and was glorifying God. This was an act of thanksgiving from a heart filled with so much love.

    However, the people who were indignant to Jesus and furious over his actions of loving, never understood how love works and manifests in the life of those who love and in need of love.

    Therefore, this is how we are called today, and that is by concretely expressing our way of loving, by not being afraid and not hesitating to love. In this way, we may truly imitate God who is all love. Kabay pa.

  • God first loved us

    God first loved us

    January 7, 2021 – Thursday after Epiphany

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010721.cfm)

    The very first time we realize that we are attracted to a person whether physically or emotionally, this gives us a chilling effect (kilig moments). When we are young, meeting and seeing that person gives us the excitement. Moreover, when we have reached a matured age capable of mature loving, the more we also feel the wonder when we also realize that we are in love. This drives us to express our love in concrete ways and leads us to commit that love in a life-long commitment.

    To be loved and to love is what really makes us human. In fact, when we do not feel that we are loved, this makes us also restless and empty. Then, our tendency is to look for ways where we could feel that we are loved. Sometimes, this leads us into unhealthy coping and even in abusive relationships just because of the need to be loved.

    When we are also not conscious of our ways of loving, sometimes it leads us into selfish ways of loving. We might think that what we do are ways of loving, but in fact, they may be ways of keeping others under our control or under our manipulation. These expressions are not God’s way of loving. God’s love for us does not lead us to violence or manipulation. God’s love liberates us and lets us experience the fullness of life.

    This is what John is telling us today. John has been proclaiming to us in the past few days the subject on love. John, today, reminds us that God first loved us. Because God first loved us, we all have the benefit of being loved and to enjoy that reality that we are indeed loved no matter what.

    John’s point is to make us confident that we are being loved first. There is no doubt in that. Take confidence in this! You are loved. I am loved. We are loved.

    Therefore, when we realize this, it moves us too, to love back. God’s love fills us and in our fullness, it naturally overflows in us. That is why, we are also capable of loving others because we are loved. John tells us that our way of loving is patterned from the source of love. Because God’s love does not control and does not do damage to others, our love also liberates others and rather brings healing to those whom we love.

    Be careful when our ways of loving is of control and doing harm to others, then, it is not love and not from God. It is motivated rather by hatred and by lies. The source of this is the evil one.

    Loving, as John also tells us, is not burdensome. That is why, keeping the commandment of God to love, is not heavy at all. How can it be heavy and oppressive when what we do is out of joy?

    Jesus in today’s Gospel expressed such joy in the Scripture that he read, “to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

    Love, then, brings healing, freedom and life. May this love fill our hearts today, so that our way of loving will also be transformed into God’s way of loving. Hinaut pa.