Understanding God's Love

I saw this video and was overcome by the simple beauty of the policeman holding onto the man afterwards.  Go ahead and watch, I won't spoil it.

Here, there was a soul despairing. Nearby, perhaps anticipating the rash cruel impulse that was tormenting the man, the policeman watched.   I especially love how he continued to hold onto the man afterwards.  God is like that with us when we seek to sin, when we fall into despair, when we find that the world is crushing us.   So God's love is vigilant, muscular, active and holds on long after we think the worst of it is passed.  He holds on until we let go.  

The commissioning of Catholics, at Confirmation, at every mass, is to be like the policeman for all the souls we encounter in whatever situation we find ourselves. 

To me, this video is luminous. 

Love is willing the good of the other first, primary, foremost, always.  The policeman may merely have been doing his job, but he did his job well.  Love simply does and does well, and if love is done properly, it is always treated as baseline.  It is simply, what we are called to do, our job.

How? 

Love is always sacrifice.

So love surrenders the body to be grown out, to be changed forever.

Love surrenders the time, all time, every time. Whether the surrender is at the job for years of sacrifice to pay for the braces, camps, tuition and all the treasures of childhood, or in hours of long tedium making sure there are enough socks or we have the right fruit and the prescription has been ordered,  love gives for eternity.

It does not count costs or tally favors, it is poured out lavishly, like water over everything, and all the love given yesterday does not count towards what must be given today. 

It is willingly given, so it is not a burden even if there are elements (toilet training, adolescence, driver's liscences, college tuition, and all the myriad of issues that come from this messy business of just living), that are burdensome.

Sometimes we forget because the messiness of life with the chaos that only humans can bring upon themselves and each other (see last week for prime examples), about the luminous component of living that only come from loving.  

So today, recognize that all you do, if done out of love of God, in response to God's love, be it homework, writing, housework, paperwork, exercise, carpooling, etc, it is a gift of love, to open the hearts and souls of others, to save them from oncoming trains and to hold onto them afterwards to let them know, it will be okay, it is okay, I've got you.