The Entire Thought

Love Connections

We cannot define love, but we know it when we see it. So, instead of wasting time arriving at a definition, just think of someone you love. You know how it feels, what it is, what it demands, what it does to you.

Now think about loving God. That is harder because God is not just one of the many people we love, not even the most important one or the one who demands our whole heart. Still, God is not just the sum total of all other love. God is a person, in a way, so we must love God personally, on purpose, even if we do it through love of others.

The command to love God is not actually a command to do something; it is a command to be something. It is the expression of who we are. We are love-creatures, creatures created by God to love God. That is our whole essence, our purpose, our goal. Everything outside of that is useless. We spend a whole lifetime getting our various loves in order so that when we die, we can love God with our whole being.

The command to love our neighbor is also more than a command to do something — to treat them justly or loyally. Just as we were created with a propensity to love God, so we are created with a disposition to love everyone. You know what love is in this case, also. To love someone is more than to wish them well, to do them good. All those actions are merely later expressions of a prior attitude toward them. First you love them, then you do the right thing.

Science tells us that every human being originated from a single loving couple in Africa. That means that humankind is not just a category; humanity is not just a nice idea: It is a physical fact. All of us are indeed bonded together by flesh and blood. We interact as parts of one large family.

And there is an even greater bond: the attachment of each one of us with Christ. It is also physical, but once removed. When each of us was born, we took on a specific quantity of human flesh. But Jesus is divine, so he is capable of supporting an infinite amount of flesh. So when he was born, he assumed all human flesh, became connected with every human person. We are bound to him and to each other. To emphasize how real this unity is, Paul compared it to a physical body in which each member is organically connected with the whole while having a personal function.

Let’s try a more modern image. Picture yourself as a computer. Now imagine that everyone of the 6 billion people on earth is connected to you. But your monitor lights up only when you make a connection with someone. Now. When was the last time you thought of anyone in Australia or Asia? Billions of people reside in the blackness of your monitor.

Millions of Europeans have not been encouraged by our kind thoughts. Millions of Latinos have not been have not been inspired by our prayers. Millions of Africans have not been fed with our alms. Even most of America is dark on our screens, except for a relative here or there. Most of the world does not exist for us because we do not love it.

The life of the world is lessened by our lovelessness. But that is not all. That dark monitor is an EKG. Those billions of disconnections weaken our heart, decrease the flow of love inside us. Remember, love is not just something we do out there — it is what we are in here.

Fr. James Smith
Celebration, October 26, 2008

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