Love is The Answer

“…whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  This is the commandment we have from him:  whoever loves God must also love his brother.”  (1 John 4:20b-21)

            I’ve always wondered about these verses in the bible.  It seemed to me that I could actually have a very strong love for God, who I couldn’t see, and still have great difficulty loving certain people that I could see.

            Little did I realize that God was asking me to change the way that I loved.  God wanted me to have some, “skin in the game,” to take risks, be involved with the lives of those around me, and prove my love by my actions.

            It’s easy for me to feel love for people who are kind.  It takes a certain amount of sacrifice to love those who are bitter, resentful, angry, or just plain mean.  I can’t do this alone.  What I need is Jesus’ spirit of sacrifice.

            I love the rosary meditation that I heard recently for the fourth joyful mystery, when Mary took her baby Son, Jesus, to the temple to present Him to the Lord.  In this prayer, my brothers and sisters in Christ, who stayed after Mass to pray the rosary, asked Mary, our Holy Mother of God, to obtain for us the spirit of sacrifice.

            Later that same day, I opened a prayer book about Saint Anthony of Padua that I received in the mail.  Even Saint Anthony encouraged people to repentance and sacrifice in their lives.  I read how Saint Anthony was not only a finder of lost things, but more importantly, I finder of lost souls!

            That’s what I want to be – a finder of lost souls.  I don’t have to travel very far to do this.  In fact, I can start with my own family!  It’s not going to take classes, or job experience, or money.  It’s going to take my heart.  It’s going to take a decision, an act of my will, to love, no matter what.

            Love is the answer, but not just any kind of love.  What my heart needs is God’s agape Love – that compassionate, merciful, forgiving, sacrificing love.  This is the kind of love I need to give to my family.  My heart needs to give this kind of love to find lost souls.

            I see my family every day.  Sometimes they can be the most difficult to love.  These are the precious ones that God has put into my life.  This is a training ground of love.  God knows my heart is not perfect, and I need His help if I am going to learn how to love like He loves.  Jesus says, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”  (John 13:34)  At this rate, I need Jesus Himself in my heart to love my family with agape Love!

            So, how do I get this agape Love?  This is how it happened for me.

I desperately needed to know deep in my heart and soul that I was loved by God as a child, that I am loved by God now, and that I will be loved by God forever.  To know this, I needed to spend lots of time in prayer with God, even years.  God graciously blessed me with visions of Jesus and Mary taking turns holding me as a child in their laps, where I soaked in their love.

Eventually, Jesus showed me something I didn’t know I had - inner wounds from childhood.  These wounds were holding me back from becoming the person God intended for me to be, fully alive in Him.  I didn’t know how to fix my heart and soul.  All I knew was that my wounds had far reaching effects into my relationships with my husband and children.  I had a father-daughter relationship with my husband, instead of a partner-partner relationship, and I had buried my authority as a mother.  I lived my life in fear, not in love.  Only God could see the wounds that needed healing in my heart and soul.  Mercifully, He set into motion certain events in my life that would bring this about.

I praise God that He knew exactly the steps I needed to take.  He blessed me with three amazing women - a spiritual director, a therapist, and a very close friend who wasn’t afraid to tell me the truth!  When I went to confession at a Catholic Women’s Conference, I realized that God was asking me to face my fears, and talk to my parents.  Talking to them was like ripping a band-aid off, but I needed to expose my inner wounds, and give Jesus permission to touch and heal me there.

Then, in prayer, Jesus showed me my wounds on His Body on the Cross.  I saw the sacrifice that Jesus made to heal me, because He loves me.  I saw how Jesus and I were united in this pain, and at the same time, we were united in His healing, freeing, rising, agape Love from the Cross!  “For if we have grown into union with him through a death like His, we shall also be united with Him in the resurrection.”  (Romans 6:5)

Some miraculous things started happening.  After twenty-eight years of marriage, my husband finally agreed to go with me to a Worldwide Marriage Encounter Retreat!  Wow!  Our communication is improving more and more every day.  Our love for each other is growing deeper as each day passes, like a second honey-moon!   He is even playing you tube love song videos for me during breakfast every morning!

A beautiful transformation took place in my heart and soul.  In the places where I was bound by sin, hiding, and hurting, Jesus set me free.  I am free to love much deeper than before.  I am free to allow God’s agape Love to flow through my wounds, united to Jesus’ wounds on the Cross, and out of my heart to the hearts of lost souls.  I am free to council my children with truth and love, instead of seeking their approval.  Praise God!

Jesus told Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska in her Diary, “When you say this prayer, with a contrite heart and with faith on behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion.  This is the prayer: (Diary, 186) ‘O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You.’” (Diary, 187)

I am so thankful to God that He not only knows how to heal me, He knows how to reach and find the souls in my family.  All I need to do is trust in Jesus and Mary.  In prayer, I bring my family to the foot of the Cross, and entrust them to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  In prayer, I also bring my family to Mary, kneeling beside her lap, and entrust them to her Immaculate Heart.

I trust Jesus, in His Mercy, to give my family the grace of conversion.  I trust Mary to bring my family to Jesus.  I trust Jesus to help me make the sacrifices necessary for my family to see His agape Love for them through me.  I trust Jesus to help me keep His commandment to love my family.  “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” (John 15:10)  I want to remain in Jesus’ love, as much as possible.  I want to remain in His agape Love.

I want to love all the people that I see, starting with my family.  Then I’ll know that I’m loving God, who I can’t see.  Then I’ll know that I’m loving God the way He wants me to love Him.  Jesus, please set my heart on fire with Your agape Love!