At most Masses after the Consecration we say with the priest the prayer, "Christ
has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again."
In two months we will come to the end of Lent, and embrace with joy the
Glorious Resurrection. It's important to remember that we cannot achieve the
Resurrection unless we first embrace and take up the Cross, suffer
with Jesus, and die to ourselves in and for Him. Only then can we look forward
to when Christ comes again. By doing all God asks we allow Him to decide what is best for us,
and how and when to use us in His plan of salvation. That is true love.
This is the Blessed Mother Mary's call to all of us. This is her plea to all her little ones
gathered beneath her mantle. The cross each carries will be different.
But they all come from the One True Cross of Jesus, Who alone is the Savior
of the World. If we look only at Him, then we'll stop looking at one
another, making comparisons, and allowing our human weaknesses to get the
better of us, and allowing satan to keep us divided. If we look only at
Jesus on the Cross, how can we be divided? He died for all mankind, even
though He knew there would be many who would not accept Him. He did not
compare, grumble, or complain. He was obedient to the Divine Will, even
unto death. And so, too, we must be. That is true love.
We must decrease that He may increase in us. This should be everyone's motto so
that with Mary, we may stand at the foot of the Cross, and with her offer our lives for the salvation of our own soul, and the souls of others. That is true love.
This way the Resurrection takes on a new meaning - the flowering of
fulfillment - the evangelization of God's Love. A love immensely different
from the world's finite connotation of "love." This is truly true love!
Love! We're inundated by the word and we've truly lost the real meaning
of the term. Our society equates "love" with sex, lust, power, greed,
wealth, and amusement. If I'm in love, then I'm love, then I'm really
lucky. If I have a spouse who loves me, that's fabulous. And we take
"love" for granted, and then wonder why in today's society there are so
many divorces, so many acts of abuse between couples, against children,
against the unborn, against mankind itself. That is not true love!
If we take a serious look at our world, not just the microcosm of our own
daily life, but the much broader picture of the entire planet, where, we
might ask, is love? We're hungry for love, because our souls are starving for lack of love.
And we're looking for love in every place but the one place where it can
truly be found - GOD!
And even when we look to God for Love, we've gotten that all wrong, too,
because many have allowed modernism, new ageism and other "isms" and
"ologies" to induce us to believe that anything that connotes love must
come from God, and is therefore okay, acceptable, and "I can do it, have
it, want it, crave it, and work my darndest to get it, no matter the cost
to anyone else." That is neither true love nor true charity.
There are those who, by accepting this rationalization of Divine Love,
have degraded all Divine and made it the basest of all human emotions.
They have dimmed the Light of the Resurrection. If it is not within the
strict framework of God's Laws - of God's Will - it is not love!
The embodiment of Love - our Heavenly Mother Mary - has been appearing now
for seventeen and a half years at Medjugorje, as well as numerous other reported sites
around the globe. Why? To call us back to the reality of Divine Love,
which is Perfect, and has absolutely nothing to do with the human emotion
or with the human definition of love.
How, in our finite mind, can we understand this? By looking at the Apex
of Love - Our Lord, Jesus Christ during His earthly life. Born in a poor and shabby cave
on a cold winter night in Bethlehem, where there was no food, no warmth from the
elements, no one to adore Him except for His Holy Mother, St. Joseph and the humble
shepherds who said "yes." To come into the world this way was pure Love!
The Messiah's life was poor, simple, filled with DIVINE LOVE, which flowed
through His Divine Soul, and touched so many lives then, as it continues to
do throughout the ages to this present day. But He was human as well, possessing both
natures and because of this he had human love for His mother, His foster-father, His
cousins, Lazareth whom He wept over, His affection for His Apostles, His disciples,
for sinners. That is true love in the human sense taught to us by One Who is Divine.
We need to hearken back to the prayer: Behold this Spotless Victim, hung upon the gibbet of the Cross, in agony unsurpassed by all men throughout all ages, and hear Him say, "Father,
forgive them. They known not what they do."I See Him there, mutilated beyond recognition, and I understand in the silence of my soul that, amidst such cruel human suffering, His Soul was in total
peace for it was One with the Divine Will. Mary, His Mother - my Mother, stood by her Divine Son and suffered in her soul all He suffered physically and still, she, too, forgave. She also willed only what the Divine Will
wanted, and gave up her Son so that the Redemptive Act might be fulfilled. For me Love was born, died and rose again. Amen.
"I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in Me, even if he
die, shall live; and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die."
John 11: 25-26.
Next Installment: Part Three of the Theological Virtue of Love