First Love

Christmastide after Epiphany (Thursday, 10 January 2019)

1 John 4:19—5:4. Psalm 72:1-2, 14, 15bc, 17. Luke 4:14-22. (Please click the following link for the above readings http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/011019.cfm.)

“Beloved, we love God because he first loved us.”

We may often ask: “Why so much of hatred, violence and war in the world?” But perhaps we too have a part in it—though tiny. We are part of the evil that we see in the world. We are part of the evil that we are fighting against. Etty Hillesum beautifully puts it: “Each of us must destroy in oneself all that we think we ought to destroy in others. Every atom of hate that we add to this world makes it still more inhospitable.”

So any work of transformation of and compassion for the world starts with us, inside ourselves. All the conflicts and contradictions that we see in the world need to be resolved within us first. Why? It is because hurt people hurt people. Those who have violence and hatred are the ones that cause violence and hatred in the world. That is why we as Christians need to deal with our own unforgiveness, self-righteousness, resentments, hatred, racism, discrimination and grudges before we are able to offer healing to the world.

Thus we can say healed people heal people. Transformed people transform people. Forgiven people forgive people. Loved people love people. The more love we are able to receive, the more love we can give others. And the good news, as St John affirms in today's first reading, is that God loved us first. We can love God in return or we can love others because God first loved us. His love is from all eternity and for ever. He is the source of our love; He is true and pure love. When we are able to understand His love, we too are able to return this love to Him in the world. When we are able to see God in us, we will be able to see God in others and the world. But if we see only demons within us, we will see demons everywhere. Therefore, we can allow God and His love to be incarnate in us. That would be the way to love the world and our brothers and sisters in the world. Therefore, to truly love God in the world, we need to let go of our anger and violence however small it may be. We love by letting go.

When I see love in myself, I will be able to see love in the world. The love in me is able to recognise the love in the world. God-and-love in me are able to deal with and heal all the evil in this world. On my own accord, I am weak and I am incapable. But the moment I allow God-and-love to reside in me and take flesh in me, that is the moment the power of God-and-love within me can take charge of the world around me. The source of true love and healing is thus God. Not me, not my mostly-selfish actions.

Monsignor Kevin Nichols' melodious offertory hymn, that we often sing in Mass, can help us re-affirm and re-group our loves and lives:

Take all that daily toil, plants in our heart’s poor soil,

Take all we start and spoil, each hopeful dream.

The chances we have missed, the graces we resist,

Lord, in thy Eucharist, take and redeem.

Therefore, our job is simply to allow love now. God will take it from there. Let love happen. Love is not so much an action that we do but a reality that we already are. We allow ourselves to be loved, and thus we can allow love to happen around us.