Making our love abiding

IN fact, we have to make our love eternal, not just abiding. This is how love should be and would be if it manages to run its full course. And thus the task we have at hand is to give all our mind, heart and strength for the attainment of such love, since the road to that goal is filled with snares and dangers.

Abiding and eternal love can only be a fruit of grace, of the love God himself so willingly and abundantly shares with us. It is the love mentioned in Christ’s new commandment that perfects all the other commandments God has given us, that we “love one another as I have loved you.”

We have to be wary of the poor and deadly imitations, the shallow and weak ones that fail to root themselves on the proper foundation of love and to tend to their proper goal.

They often ambush, spoil and frustrate the first and natural stirrings of love we always have. Infatuations, attractions based on the flesh and the allurements of the world have to be immediately identified and avoided, if they cannot be purified and repaired.

We have to teach everyone the full range of love that usually starts with what is called “eros,” loving someone because you can get something from him/her, then “filia”, loving someone because you share with him/her some things, then the most perfect, “agape,” loving someone out of pure self-giving, without expecting any return.

We have to teach everyone that such love of “agape” can only take place when our love is nothing less than a participation in the love of God. For this, we need to follow the teaching and the very example and life of Christ.

So how do we do this, how do we put this in motion, since I think we already have enough of the theories, principles and doctrine related to this matter?

My conversations with students and others have strengthened my belief that we need to teach everyone how to focus their mind and heart on God and others. The implication is that everyone should be alerted that when our thoughts and feelings just revolve around ourselves, we actually have a problem.

Many people fail to realize this. And that should not surprise us. Our own natural limitations and weaknesses, the temptations inside and around us, can be such that they become part of our culture, of our system, and grip us like a vise to think only of ourselves instead of God and others.

One young fellow once told me he prefers to be by himself, just thinking about anything that happens to cross his mind. This is actually a common phenomenon, and we have to make people see this is a poisonous situation.

We have to warn everyone of this mainstream predicament, convincing them in ways accessible to their understanding and appreciation. And from there, we have find ways of how to train people to truly fall in love, the love that is genuine.

We have to tell them to reach out to others always, and not to wait for opportunities to come, or for the ideal conditions to take place. Loving is a matter of the will, of simply wanting to be nice, to be affectionate, to be helpful, to be concerned, to understand, to forgive and make excuses and allowances for others’ defects, etc.

For this to happen, we should not depend only on our physical or emotional conditions, nor on the so-called ideal cultural or social openings to come. Many times, we have to make sacrifices, to deny ourselves of comfort, convenience, preferences.

We have to understand that sacrifice is the touchstone of love. It is what consummates love, what purifies it and expands our heart to fit everyone in any condition. Loving always involves sacrifice since it is about self-giving, adapting oneself to the others, identifying oneself with them, including our enemies.

That’s why, Christ commanded us to love our enemies, “to do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and calumniate you.” (Mt 5,44) This Christian standard will obviously require a lot of effort and sacrifice from us. So, we have to be willing to give that effort and sacrifice.

This is Christian love, the source and goal of our love. It is a very powerful love described to us by St. Paul in this way: “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful…Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”