If I love with God’s love, that love is eternal! What an opportunity!

I read this month’s Word of life (http://www.focolare.org.uk/word-of-life.html), and was quite struck by the gospel. It is amazing how quickly I can fall into a sort of mediocrity, being quite content and stopping at the means to love God rather than to love him.  

Jesus wants love, and mercy is one of its expressions.

He wants Christians to live like this, above all else because God is like this.

In Jesus’ eyes, God is, in first place, the Merciful One, the Father who loves everyone and who makes the sun rise and rain fall on the good and the bad.

Because Jesus loves everyone, he is not afraid of associating with sinners, and in this way he reveals to us who God is.

If God, then, is like this, if Jesus is like this, you too must have the same feelings.

I noticed that it is very easy to slip into the formal “bits” as a matter of routine, a habit without thinking. So, I say my prayers thinking of something else, perhaps even as quickly as possible. I go to mass hoping it will be short, I say to my brother or sister: Let’s love one another so that Jesus can be present amongst us as a solution to any conflict! Sometimes I have the impressions that my way of praying, of using the means God has given me to spend time with him is more of an inconvenience for me that I have to get through in order to do other things. And yet the most import thing is to love with the love God loves me, us, that is a universal love. 

Do not discriminate between the people you are in touch with, do not treat anyone as less important, but offer everyone as much as you can give, imitating God the Father. Patch up minor or major disagreements which are displeasing to heaven and bring bitterness to your life. As Scripture says, do not let the sun set on your anger with anyone (see Eph. 4:26).

How easy it is to fall into an exclusive love, without intending it: I spend time with someone more than someone else because I like them, because s/he belongs to my community of the focolare, because s/he belongs to the same Church, because, I feel understood, because… I understood that God’s love is universal because in loving he gives all of himself, without reserve! My love is limited in time and space and I need to enlarge my heart to that of the heart of Jesus, throwing over board the artificial categories that I have within me as a creature subject to time and space. Only in unity with my brothers and sisters can I enter into the divine dimension of God’s love which allows me to overcome my limited categories. I remember that Jesus did not say: that all believers, all Christians, or in my case all Catholics, may be one. He did say: That all may be one!

If you behave like this, all you do will be pleasing to God and will remain in eternity. Whether you are working or resting, whether you are playing or studying, whether you are with your children or going for a walk with your wife or husband, whether you are praying or making sacrifices, or fulfilling the religious practices of your Christian vocation, everything, everything, everything is raw material for the kingdom of heaven.

 

Paradise is a house we build here and dwell in there. And we build it with love.

So do I have to worry about following the rules, if I don’t have love for my neighbour? Everything I do should be an expression of love for my neighbour, any neighbour in the present moment, a love which is the raw material for the kingdom of heaven! So I follow the rules, if they are an expression of my love for my neighbour! And the incredible gift of love of God is that his love in me remains for all eternity! If I love with God’s love, that love is eternal! What an opportunity!