Learn to love without seeking a reward

Pope Benedict XVI (R) washes feet of priests during the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday on April 5, 2012. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • God is love, and “love is patient, love is kind.” Perhaps you know people who are patient and kind—men and women who are truly interested in others and sacrifice themselves to help others no matter what the cost.
  • Such love is not based on how good the other person is. Such love is not based on how soon we think the other person will return the favour: “When you organise a dinner, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. That they cannot pay you back means that they will repay you when the virtuous rise from the dead.”

“GOD IS LOVE!” Can we really trust these words? Some people do not even believe that God exists, much less do they associate him with love.

To say “God is love” does not come from a philosopher who spent years pondering infinity. The words are a revelation. It is God telling us that he is more than a creator. He is a father who forgives his children as soon as they show the slightest sign of being sorry. God is a father who cares for his children even when they seem to ignore him. Above all, God is a father who gives us the best that he can give. “God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten Son!”

God is love, and “love is patient, love is kind.” Perhaps you know people who are patient and kind—men and women who are truly interested in others and sacrifice themselves to help others no matter what the cost. God is much more than that. He is more than patient and kind. He is the very essence of patience and kindness. He is love.

SPENDING OURSELVES

Jesus made the Father’s mercy the standard for our mercy: “Love your enemies. Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.” Then Jesus made his own love for us the standard by which we are supposed to care for each other. No wonder the new commandment would be a commandment of love: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Such love is not based on how good the other person is. Such love is not based on how soon we think the other person will return the favour: “When you organise a dinner, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. That they cannot pay you back means that they will repay you when the virtuous rise from the dead.”

I like the way Carol Houselander explained it, based on her experience of nursing wounded soldiers during World War II: “We do not love people for their virtues, beauty or wit. Love is most likely to spring from another’s need of us. And the fact of spending ourselves for another to satisfy that need always generates new life in us.

Everyone who has nursed the sick or wounded knows that for so long as the patient needs it, a special grace of life-giving energy is given to the nurse ... We love those people most of all whose needs awaken a response in us that floods us with creative energy.”

A wise man of ages past once wrote: “Where there is no love, put love and you will receive love in return.” This is the kind of truth that we can verify only by putting it into practice. Try to approach those you find disagreeable and treat them with kindness.