Do You Know How To Love?
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
“The Lord is kind and merciful.”Ps. 103
Many believe that they love someone and in reality they may only be loving themselves, because they do not know how to love. Love is not selfish, quite the contrary, it seeks the good of the beloved.
The Bible tells us that love is the most important thing, the essential of the divine life, it is the first fruit that the Holy Spirit bears, for this reason it will also say that without love I am nothing, nor does the achievements that I reach in this life benefit me in this earth, without that divine love I am really dead.
“He who does not love does not know God.”1 Jn 4,8
And how is this love that gives me life, without which I am nothing, since I have no life and cannot give it?
“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”1 Corinthians 13,4
Charity does not seek your interest, it is decent, it is not rude or imposed, it is respectful. Love is giving more than receiving, as the famous prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi expresses very well: O Master!, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.
All this can serve as a self-review: do I know how to love like this? Do I seek to receive or give? Do I seek to be loved or to love? Do I seek the good and growth of the one I love, the well-being and happiness of him before God or do I selfishly seek to impose my whim?
Christian love is not a feeling, it is will and action in favor of the neighbor. It is what resembles us to God, which is love. A love that does not depend on others, on whether they are good or bad, nice or unfriendly. We love if we have our roots in God, we will bear God’s fruits, to everyone, to good and bad.
“Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors, so that they may be children of our Father who is in Heaven. Because he makes his sun shine on the bad and the good, and he sends the rain on the just and the sinners. If you love only those who love you, what merit is that? Also sinners do it.”Matthew 5,44
If we knew the good that makes us love, we would not miss the opportunity to practice it, all kinds of good works, of charity, material or spiritual, because that is where we have the opportunity to lay up treasures in heaven, make the Kingdom of God present, please God and correspond to so much love that he gives us. It is the best we can do with life, gifts and talents that he gives us: in fact, it is precisely this end for which we have this life and what gives it its maximum meaning. It is the way to be true disciples of Christ, his friends, his intimates, and to make ourselves his home.
Readings for the Week
Monday: Sir 1:1-10; Ps 93:1-2, 5; Mk 9:14-29
Tuesday: Sir 2:1-11; Ps 37:3-4, 18-19, 27-28, 39-40; Mk 9:30-37
Wednesday: Jl 2:12-18; Ps 51:3-6ab, 12-14, 17; 2 Cor 5:20 — 6:2; Mt 6:1-6, 16-18
Thursday: Dt 30:15-20; Ps 1:1-4, 6; Lk 9:22-25
Friday: Is 58:1-9a; Ps 51:3-6ab, 18-19; Mt 9:14- 15
Saturday: Is 58:9b-14; Ps 86:1-6; Lk 5:27-32
Sunday: Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Ps 51:3-6, 12-13, 17; Rom 5:12-19 [12, 17-19]; Mt 4:1-11