The radicalness of love

WITH Holy Week we celebrate the root and summit of the whole Christian liturgy, the contact point between the long penitential period of Lent and the glorious season of Easter. In youth speak, it is “the” week of the year.

Once again we witness a wonderful transformation in our society when almost all of a sudden and in mysterious ways, a good number of the people become extremely pious, streaming and crowding the churches, doing all sorts of devotions, etc. There’s a veritable explosion of popular piety all over.

This, to me, is definitely a great blessing from above. Whatever maybe our defects—temperamentally, socially, culturally, historically, etc.—we cannot deny that the Holy Week phenomenon we have only shows where our basic faith is.

It shows that our heart and mind are in the right place. The fundamentals, so to speak, of our spiritual life are healthy. We just have to continue nourishing and developing our Christian beliefs and life itself. This is the proper attitude to take.

Thus, Holy Week again provides us with a marvelous occasion to fathom and savor God’s love for us, the beginning, pattern and end of our life. Let’s try to sound and measure the radicalness of God’s love for us, because that is the only kind of love proper to us.

We should have every reason to be suspicious of any love that we may feel and start to play out that is not based on this love of God. It mostly like would be a fake and dangerous love adventure. Let’s not be naïve.

I recommend some exceptionally long periods of meditations on the life of Christ, especially on his Passion, Death and Resurrection. The purpose and meaning of our life is found there. The very principle and germ of Christian life is released there.

For example, we can plumb deep into some words of Christ, like, “Greater love than this no man has, that a man lays down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15,13)

Or, “Before the festival day of the pasch, Jesus knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” (Jn 13,1)

Or still another, “No man takes my life away from me, but I lay it down of myself, and I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again.” (Jn 10,18)

Let’s accompany these reflections with a generous dose of sacrifice, penance and mortification, to make our understanding of these words more deep, thorough and capable of becoming the principle and leaven of our thoughts, desires and actions.

I think it’s only with these conditions, together of course with the grace of God, that we can have glimpses, appreciation and power to make as our own the very radicalness of God’s love for us.

These conditions somehow enable us, in spite of our weakness, defects and mistakes, to live the very life of Christ who’s is “the way, the truth and the life” for us.

They equip us with a certain wisdom that convinces us that willingly embracing the cross is where true love can be found, because in our life here on earth that’s where Christ always is. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mt 16,24)

I saw this lesson acted out in a fascinating way sometime ago. I met a very good-natured boy who studied in one of our schools. He came from the mountains, 3 hours away from the city by car, and he used to take care of goats. But he was a genius in school.

When I met his mother, I was impressed by the simplicity and heroism with which she lived her life. These qualities were like second nature to her.

She told me that to attend our monthly sessions on parenting, she many times had to borrow money for the fare, wake up as early as 2 am to be on time for the seminar. And she never came late! That’s why she received a special award during her son’s graduation.

She, of course, went to Mass in their village chapel without fail, walking quite a distance. She prayed a lot and worked hard in the farm. And she managed to smile always.

The conclusion I made: loving the cross is loving Christ. It is loving truly and radically…