Monday, March 9
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
—Luke 6: 32-33
But if honoring your true self in communion with another human is the vision, love is difficult. That kind of love, rare indeed, comes only at great cost.
Too often partners try to change one another, making them into something that they were never meant to be. Love becomes the quest to create someone else in our own image, redesigning them as if they are an item on a shelf made ready for our use. Jesus invites us to a deeper understanding of love. He points to relationships that are not about changing the other to suit our needs, but rather are based on accepting the other as a gift from God.
True love embraces the gift present in the blessing of the other. The challenge for most of us is that love has become so consumption oriented that we fail to see love for what it truly is: a recycling project of epic proportions! True love endures and pushes at the boundaries of our hearts. It comes only when we are able to see each other as distinct individuals and yet united in that which binds us all.
What does love look like in your life? How is God inviting you towards a more holistic understanding of love in all of your relationships? How is God asking you to accept others as a gift and to let them freely live in communion with you?
God of love, help me accept the other without a need to change, so that in discovering more of your creation, I might also discern more of myself and find a greater love. Amen.
