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Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

Week of February 23, 2004

Love's rainbow opens hearts, lives

Light One Candle

By MSGR. JIM LISANTE

February is the time of year when it seems appropriate to talk about love.

Clearly, St. Valentine's Day has become associated with people expressing warm affection, even undying devotion. And if it makes folks feel closer and fonder of one another to send cards and flowers or share a box of chocolates, I say, more power to them.

However, the occasion I'm really thinking of is Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent.

Love is far more than an emotion: it is a force of heaven. God's love for his people is what propels us from the despair of death to the hope of eternity; from the mortality we contemplate on Ash Wednesday through the ultimate sacrifice of God's Son on Good Friday to his glorious resurrection of Easter morning.

Whatever love we have for ourselves, for others and for God himself exists because God first loved us, not with simple sentiment, but with a miraculous power. I believe he expects our love to reflect his own, with words and actions that express our belief in the transforming potential of love.

So, this Lenten season I have a suggestion for what to give up. Give up apathy and ambivalence. Embrace God's love for your own. Think about ways to put love into practice in all the little and large moments of everyday life. Think about what love really means.

  • Love is pleasant when it would be easy to be irritable.
  • Love listens even when it's not convenient.
  • Love speaks kindly of those whom others belittle.
  • Love draws out the best from those who often fail.
  • Love delights in giving attention rather than in attracting it.
  • Love respects the other's point of view without necessarily accepting it.
  • Love knows how to disagree without becoming disagreeable.
  • Love rejoices at the success of others instead of being envious.
  • Love puts up with others' idiosyncrasies without being self-righteous.
  • Love strives to make a bad situation better instead of just complaining.
  • Love avoids causing unnecessary pain even when it's difficult.
  • Love helps those in trouble without expecting the favour to be returned.
John Henry Cardinal Newman said, "One little deed, done against natural inclinations for God's sake, though in itself of a passive character, to brook an insult, to face danger, or to resign an advantage, has in it power outbalancing all the dust and chaff of mere profession."

How small and insignificant love seems when put in these terms - until we try to live it. There's nothing easy about pouring out love through patient perseverance. Denying your own desires for the welfare of another and returning good for evil are considered weak by those who don't have the strength to do it.

So, when your thoughts this month turn to hearts, that's fine - as long as you treasure all love for the One heart pierced for love of you.

(For a free copy of the Christopher News Note, Works of Mercy, Gifts of Love, write: The Christophers, 12 East 48 St., New York, NY, 10017; or e-mail: mail@christophers.org.)

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