Devotion for today: have we loved enough?

Here is a thought for Valentine’s Day!

Scripture for meditation: 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Now I will show you the way which surpasses all the others. If I speak with human tongues and angelic as well, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and, with full knowledge, comprehend all mysteries, if I have faith great enough to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give everything I have to feed the poor and hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Christ tells us: Matthew 22:37-40

“You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments the whole law is based, and the prophets as well.”

Johann Christoph Arnold tells us: The best way – the only way – to truly overcome the fear of death is to live life in such a way that its meaning cannot be taken away by death. This sounds grandiose, but it is really very simple. It means fighting the impulse to live for ourselves, instead of for others. It means choosing generosity over greed. It also means living humbly, rather than seeking influence and power. Finally, it means being ready to die again and again – to ourselves, and to every self-serving opinion or agenda. Love is a tangible reality. Sometimes it is born of passion or devotion; sometimes it is a hard-won fruit, requiring work and sacrifice. Its source is unimportant. But unless we live for love, we will not be able to meet death confidently when it comes. I say this because I am certain that when our last breath is drawn and our soul meets God, we will not be asked how much we have accomplished. We will be asked whether we have loved enough. To quote John of the Cross, “In the evening of life you shall be judged on love.” As my great-aunt Else lay dying of tuberculosis, a friend asked her if she had one last wish. She replied, “Only to love more.” If we live our lives in love we will know peace at the hour of death. And we will not be afraid (from Be Not Afraid, taken from A Maryknoll book of Inspiration, Orbis Books, 2010).

Prayer: Nothing Is Outside the Realm of Your Love by Gerard Thomas Straub

O sweet Lord, I want so much to avoid the bitter cross You ask me to carry, the cross of putting aside everything that is outside the realm of Your love. Actually, nothing is outside the realm of Your love, because You so long for us, so thirst for us that You follow us into the darkest corners of our lives looking to embrace us with Your mercy and compassion.  Yet I so often want to embrace things that You find unhealthy and unfitting for a seeker of God. O Lord help me see, feel and know that outside of You there is nothing of any worth, and that with You all is priceless. Help me nail to the cross the secret things in my heart that I must sacrifice in order to follow You more closely and love You more dearly (Hidden in the Rubble: A Haitian Pilgrimage to Compassion and Resurrection, taken from A Maryknoll book of Inspiration, Orbis Books, 2010).

My thoughts: I often wonder what it is like when we die. I like to say that I picture purgatory as sitting on a sofa with St. Peter, watching the complete DVD of my life: the good, the bad and the ugly.  As I watch, I am given the opportunity to see all the times God placed people in my life and asked me to love Him in them. It will be wonderful to see the times I actually did that, and how that fit into God’s plan for my life and theirs. That is the good. Of course, I must also watch the times I turned away, was too busy to listen or care, or just didn’t want to reach out. Now I get to see the result of that action on my life and theirs. That is the bad and the ugly. We can never love enough, for we learn today that, in the end, we are judged on how much we loved. It is time to nail our selfishness to the cross, and face death unafraid. Be it said of you and of me, “They have loved, and loved well.”

Our prayer to God: Since today is Valentine’s Day, and we will be showering our love on those we hold dear to our hearts, let us reach out to someone whom we know is in need of special care and attention: maybe the co-worker who is so hard to take, or the neighbor who is so annoying, or the family member who can turn joyous events into nightmares. Anyway we look at it, we need to be God’s messengers of love in this world. I have it on good authority that our reward will be great in the next!  As the Christian hymn states, “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugQwh-phnZY&feature=related.