Love of a fellow human being requires the opposite of Greed. In love we sacrifice our own needs, wants, and desires for another person. If it is our desire for material goods that drives us to a consistent unhappiness because our own lives fall short of the ideal that is set forth in the media, then we must see that choosing what is good for others will give us happiness.
This may not be the type of happiness that is sold to us in the media, but it is the type of happiness that is long lasting. It is the type of happiness that is beyond the simple endorphin rush that we feel when we become infatuated with an object or even a person.
In the end, love is not a feeling, but a choice. A choice for the good of another person. A choice to work for what is good in another person, to do what is needed so that they can acheive what God wants for them.
The problem is when we find it difficult to do for other people what they need and instead surrender to simply giving them what we think that they want. This may be because we don't want to face the possibility that the person may not want what they actually need and a conflict is going to result.
We may not want to give someone what they need because we don't see how it is going to benefit us or we don't seem to agree that it is the best thing for them. They can get what they want and still go on to live a fruitful life. Perhaps we think that someone needs something else.
There are a multitude of reasons to choose to avoid giving someone what they need rather than what they want. In the end, each of those choices, if drawn out, will not lead to a permanent happiness for either individual because in the end those choices are selfish.
Selfishness can never be love.
Selfishness can never be anything other than the utilization of another person. When you use another person, that rejection of love makes the person into an object and kills the ability to love in our own hearts.
God does not want our hearts hardened. God wants our hearts tenderized by the sacrifice of love. To rob sacrifice from love is to rob the very thing that makes love joyful in the end.
What would it take for you to choose love today? In every situation that you can? In every situation that is possible for one day?
Whose life might it change? Whose life might it affect? Are far as you are concerned, your life may be no different and you may actually find yourself in a situation where you have to make a sacrifice that actually costs you a great deal. It may be what is best for another, but it may not be something that is very comfortable for you.
To do this for one person in one day may not be a big deal. Especially when the person who is the recipient of this act of love is someone that you commonly sacrifice for, like a child or a dear friend. To do this for someone who does not expect it, to do this for someone who does not know you, or someone who does not even like you or thinks that you like them is the type of action that starts to change the world.
How can we even begin to do this so that we can sacrifice for others on a consistent basis, to love them in the way that God intended?
Prayer is the first thing.
If we are not in touch with Christ's sacrifice on the Cross then there is no possible way that we can start to sacrifice in a way that is similar to that sacrifice. This is why the prayer of Christ, the final prayer that he offers to God is so powerful.
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."
In our spirit, in our soul is our intellect and our free will. The things that God has promised never to go against. God will never force our free will and never manipulate our intellect. For us to surrender those things completely to God is the ultimate act of love on behalf of God. To be able to offer them perfectly is the way that we can offer ourselves perfectly to our fellow man.
Today is the first day of the Challenge that embraces a very real change in the way that we actively behave with others.
Today we love.
With our entire spirits surrendered to God.
Questions for Reflection:
- When do you find it the most difficult to give someone something that they need? Is it when the person is difficult to get along with or someone that you are fond of? Why or why not?
- If we know that love will always bring us more happiness than simply using people, why do we consistently use people?
- Given that most of us are not totally consumed by sin, nor completely holy, in what way have we compromised our sanctity in order to make life a little easier for ourselves? Our choices to love?
- Who in your life do you need to love today? Why?
- How has materialism and greed impacted our ability to love? How do you perceive it in our society? In your own life? In your own family?
- For today, concern yourself with the needs of three people around you that are most difficult to love. Do not concern yourself with what they want or what you want, only work for what they need.
- Make an effort today to do something that is outside of your "comfort zone." This may mean that you have to pay a visit to someone that you need to forgive, or someone that you avoid talking to.
- God is waiting for you to surrender your will to Him. Make an effort every day to surrender your intellect and will to God so that you may make better choices to love.
- Make a commitment to love every single person that is within five feet of you at any given moment. Consider what is best for them. Be present in conversations and try to always do what is best for the other.
- Notice when it becomes difficult for you to love another person. What is similar about the situations? What is different? How can you surrender those to Christ?
Go to Mass or read the readings for the day.
Prayer of St. Francis: (to be said in the morning)
- Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
- where there is hatred, let me sow love;
- where there is injury, pardon;
- where there is doubt, faith;
- where there is despair, hope;
- where there is darkness, light;
- and where there is sadness, joy.
- O Divine Master,
- grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
- to be understood, as to understand;
- to be loved, as to love;
- for it is in giving that we receive,
- it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
- and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
- Amen.
(Before talking to another person) Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.
