Men's Rosary

What does it mean to love?  We love our jobs, maybe!  We love our favorite sport, food, our pet, our family, our spouse, and our friends.  The list can be long.  But love is also a word that is thrown around too loosely.  It is important to take time to understand what love is. Especially in a time of societal decay and indifference, love is needed more than ever.

Scripture gives us a wonderful definition of what love is.  “Love is patient and kind;  love does not envy or boast;  it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way;  it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Love comes in three varieties;  Philia -brotherly love, Eros -romantic love, and Agape – God’s unconditional and sacrificial love.  We are called to grow in all of these and ultimately come to Agape, to love others as God loves us and to love God as God loves us.  Scripture tells us how much God loves us in an unconditional and sacrificial way.   “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  (John 3:16)  That is a high bar to be sure.  But we are called to it.  Others have been called as well and answered the call.  God tests us in these moments.  Recall Abrahm’s test in sacrificing his son Isaac.  He was prepared to give his only son and because of his faith God spared Isaac and provided a ram for the sacrifice and blessed Abraham (Genesis 22:1-19).  Can we love God like that?  Christ loved the Father and us with an Agape love.  For love of us and the father he obeyed and gave his life as a ransom.  Knowing that he would be doing this he gave a new commandment to his disciples.  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another:  just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  (John 13:34-35)

To love as Christ loved, as God loves us, is to love unconditionally and sacrificially.  In our marriage and families, to love is to put the others before ourselves.  It is to sacrifice and not count the cost.  To love God is to do the same.  We must put God first and be willing to sacrifice and not count the cost.  To follow Christ is to love God unconditionally because there will be sacrifice and cost.  Christ warned of this.  “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own;  but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”  (John 15:18-19)

How much are we going to love God?  Who are we going to love more, the world or God?  Are we willing to love God unconditional and accept the sacrifices we must make in doing so?  Are we willing to be hated by the world?  These are good questions to pray about to take inventory of our spiritual health.  Then in our actions and love for one another the world will know we are disciples of Christ. 

“In the long run there will be but two kinds of men; those who love God and those who love something else.”  St. Augustine