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– Two –

The Power of Love

Have you heard St. Augustine’s monumental spiritual advice: “Love God, and do what you will”? That sounds like Jesus, doesn’t it? It’s the Gospel in a nutshell. Think for a moment of Jesus’ last two major discourses to his apostles before he was arrested and crucified, the Last Supper and then his “final discourse.” Essentially, they are wildly loving pronouncements of love. Wildly loving, because Jesus doesn’t speak in theory or with platitudes. He is telling his closest friends that the Christian love he is calling them to entails a willingness to live and die for your friend or enemy.

During the Last Supper, Jesus gives his apostles his body and his blood, a foretelling of the way he will die for them. And then in his “final discourse,” as it is often called, Jesus tells them not to worry when he is gone because he will be with his Father and will send the Holy Spirit upon them. And then, he simply commands them to love one another.

I have been with a lot of people on their deathbed. Some of them have been beautiful deaths. A few of them have been terribly tragic. What has separated the two types of death is neither age nor expectation of death, but rather whether or not there was love, given and received, between the dying and the survivors, and ultimately between the dying and the author of life, God himself. Where there was love, there was beauty because there was peace. Where there was built-up anger and resentment, at the hour of death, there was only confusion and desperation.

How do we assure a life and death marked by love? The subsequent lines of St. Augustine’s famous homily I quoted above are less well known, but equally as helpful: “If you keep silence, do it out of love. If you cry out, do it out of love. If you refrain from punishing, do it out of love.”

This is the practical application of spirituality that Father Keller so loved. He was fascinated, not by love as a virtue but rather love as a life-transforming gift from God. He loved to talk about “the power of love,” the power to transform our hearts and the world.

Dive now into his hope-filled and practical vision of a simple life of love.

— Father Jonathan

– Love Is Enough –

There is an ancient tradition about the last days of John the Evangelist. He lived to a great age and became so feeble he had to be carried to the meetings of the faithful. There, because of his weakness, he was unable to deliver a long discourse; so at each gathering he simply repeated the words, “Little children, love one another.”

The disciples, weary of hearing the same words over and over, asked him why he never said anything else. And to them John gave this answer. He said, in effect, it is the commandment of the Lord: “Do this alone and it is enough.”

If we adhered to these words the difficulty and complexity of our daily lives would disappear. In this clear advice we have the solution to all the problems that create hatred and strife among nations.

So faith, hope, love remain, these three; butthe greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

O LORD, I LOVE YOU WITH ALL THAT I AM;

HELP ME TO LOVE MY NEIGHBOR.

– The Secret of Love –

When he was conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Artur Rodzinski said: “In our orchestra we have many nationalities, types, and temperaments. We have learned to forget individual likes, dislikes, and differences of temperament for the sake of music to which we have dedicated our lives. I often wonder if we could not solve the world’s problems on a similar basis of harmony.”

“Think what a single individual in a symphony orchestra can accomplish,” the famous maestro continued, “by giving up his individual traits and ambitions in the service of music…. Suppose that in life you had the same all-embracing love for the whole of mankind and for your neighbor in particular. Only when every one of us and every nation learns the secret of love for all mankind will the world become a great orchestra, following the beat of the Greatest Conductor of all.”

Not until all men look up to the “Greatest Conductor of all,” giving Him their devotion and wholehearted love, will they learn the “secret of love for all mankind.”

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with allyour heart, with all your being, with all your strength,and with all your mind, and yourneighbor as yourself.”

Luke 10:27

O GOD, GRANT THAT MY LOVE FOR YOU MAY

OVERFLOW INTO LOVE OF OTHERS.

– Love Always Wins –

Napoleon, in his lonely exile on St. Helena, had much time for thought. And some of his reflections were highly interesting. This one, for instance:

Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I founded great empires. But upon what did the creation of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded his empire upon love, and to this very day millions would die for him.

Forcing none, Christ taught in a new way, the only one throughout history whose whole school and whole plan were founded on love. The world had never before heard of this love. And even now, twenty centuries later, more than half the world is still ignorant of it. Often Jesus seems to lose, but in reality He always wins — and always by love.

“I give you a new commandment: love oneanother. As I have loved you, so you alsoshould love one another.”

John 13:34

O GOD, I WANT TO LOVE YOU AS YOU WOULD HAVE ME LOVE.

– All for the Love of God –

The Huron Indians, who occupied part of what is now New York State when it was still a wilderness, gave violent reception to some of the missioners from Europe who came among them. But to two of these missioners, Fathers Brébeuf and Lalemant, both Frenchmen, they paid a strange compliment indeed. After subjecting them to the most horrible tortures, they tore out their hearts, ate them, and drank their warm blood. Why? Because their courage so impressed them that they wished, by drinking their blood, to have instilled in them some of the bravery of the men they put to death.

What first moved the Hurons to treat these two as they did? It wasn’t the courage of Brébeuf and Lalemant alone. It was the cumulative effect of the fortitude of those missioners who had gone before them … Isaac Jogues, René Goupil, and the rest. Their sufferings were almost unbelievable. They were beaten with knotted sticks, their hair, beards, fingernails were torn out, their fingers chewed off at the ends.

Yet they bore all this for love of God and the Indians, in whom they saw the image and likeness of God. From their sufferings came forth the flowering of faith. In death they were victorious. A powerful example to fortify Christophers when faced with suffering!

“Then they will hand you over to persecution,and they will kill you. You will be hated by allnations because of my name.”

Matthew 24:9

WHATEVER COMES, LORD, I BEAR IT ALL FOR YOU AND WITH YOU.

– Love Without Limits –

A Christopher may be distinguished by love for all people. Most of us love “some of the people some of the time,” but few of us love “all of the people all of the time.” A dangerous trend is developing among Christians. They are beginning to hate, to return hatred for hatred. This method has never yet had lasting results with Christians or anti-Christians. Love, on the other hand, has made possible the very condition of Christian civilization that protects every individual from the evils that follow in the wake of hatred. We must remember that Christ died for all men, even those who crucified Him. He asked us to bring His love to “all men” of “all nations.” Upon this basic principle rests the whole spirit of the Christopher.

The love of God has been poured out into ourhearts through the holy Spirit that has beengiven to us.

Romans 5:5

O HOLY SPIRIT, FILL MY HEART WITH LOVE FOR EVERYONE I MEET.

– Unconditional Love –

A wealthy young couple walked into a large orphanage one day to adopt two children. They gladly filled out forms and gave vital statistics, while the officials of the institution did their best to make the visitors comfortable.

Finally, the director, beaming with satisfaction, said: “Now we’ll show you two of the nicest children in the orphanage.”

The wife turned quickly and then remarked kindly but firmly: “Oh, please, no! We don’t want the nicest children; we want two that nobody else would take.”

We naturally choose to associate with people we like, those who are most congenial. But we are missing something important in life if we do not try to go beyond this limited circle. Every follower of Christ is entrusted with a portion of His love that he is expected to share with others, especially with those who have little of it and therefore need it most.

“For if you love those who love you,what recompense will you have? Do not the taxcollectors do the same?”

Matthew 5:46

LORD, STRENGTHEN ME TO SHOW CONCERN FOR THOSE

WHO ARE FORGOTTEN BY OTHERS.

– Who Is My Neighbor? –

G. K. Chesterton was not merely joking when he wrote, “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”

Sometimes when we hear that modern communications and transportation have brought people closer together, we forget that the worst wars in history have occurred in just this period of heightened contact.

The mere act of bringing people closer together in physical and intellectual contact will never of itself guarantee harmony. There must be, first of all, spiritual contact, a sharing in the same realization that we have all been created by the same Father and for the same purpose.

“But I say to you, love your enemies, and prayfor those who persecute you, that you may bechildren of your heavenly Father, for he makeshis sun rise on the bad and the good, andcauses rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”