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By Fr. Roy Cimagala *
“AS the Father loves me, so I also love you.” (Jn 15,9) Words of Christ that are worth engraving indelibly in our mind and heart. They clearly show us how much God loves us. Imagine, the love that God the Father lavished on God the Son is the same love that is also lavished on us!
This truth of our faith should drive us crazy as well as move us to learn to love God in return and to love everybody else with the same love God has for all of us. And Christ gives us the secret of how we can have such love that, according to him, will give us our complete joy. (cfr. Jn 15,11)
And that is to keep God’s commandments. “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,” he said, “just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” (Jn 15,10)
Given the way love is understood by many of us, we need to learn to distinguish between what is genuine love and fake love, between what is objectively good and evil and what may just be our own ideas of them that do not conform to the truth.
Nowadays, the ability to distinguish these essential elements in our life is most needed since we are in very complicated times and many people, especially the young, the so-called millennials, are unfortunately thrown into deep confusion and ignorance. Some people have even described such sad phenomenon as invincibly irremediable.
But I believe there’s always hope and that we can still manage to get to the truth. And so, the first thing that we can say with regard to this issue is that to distinguish between truth and falsehood, between good and evil, between genuine love and fake love, we need to have a close, intimate relationship with God.
After all, he is the creator of all things, the first and ultimate lawgiver, the very foundation of reality. Without him, we go out on a limb, and expose ourselves to many dangers. Not that with him, we are free of dangers. In fact, with him, we will always be hounded by temptations from inside us and outside us. But at least with him, we are sure of the path we are taking, and the choice we will be making.
Our love, to be true, can only flow from God who loves himself. And that love is shown to us and is made available to us by Christ who commanded us precisely to love one another as he himself has loved us. (cfr Jn 13,34)
This love that comes from God through Christ in the Holy Spirit will always be in the truth, will always be consistent irrespective of our conditions and circumstances, will always know how to adapt itself to different situations without getting lost.
And given our human condition that is prone to confusion and error, we should realize that we need to always renew and purify our love. That’s simply because of the tension between our nature and our supernatural goal, not to mention our present wounded human condition that is prone to temptation and sin and to all kinds of weaknesses. We unavoidably contend with these conditions in our earthly life.
We can always start with good intentions and the best of our efforts in anything that we do. But if we do not constantly renew and purify our love for God and neighbour that should inspire all our actions, we simply cannot go the distance.
* Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
