Love-Talk

Love. This is a most confusing and disturbing reality in today’s world. From movies, television, printed ads and magazines, all the way to the internet and facebook, inducing and seducing us to interpret love as the fulfillment of one’s self. Self-oriented. Ego-centric. A focus on the I, Me, Mine. My needs, expectations, whatever will give me joy and happiness. I love whoever gives these to me.

Take this girlfriend: “I am ready to marry my boyfriend, who is very much like my father when I was growing up. My boyfriend foresees my material needs and gives them to me even before I ask for them. He even buys me expensive gifts that I could not afford. His thoughtfulness and concern for my happiness is what convinces me that I am in love with him.”

What about this husband: “I really love my wife because she is so good to me. She follows whatever I ask her to do, even if at times, I know that what I am asking from her is very difficult to do. She never complains. That is why I love her.” No focus on what the self does for the other.

All the above and more must be compared to what Christ, the Supreme Lover, is telling us in today’s Gospel reading: “Love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn. 15: 12-13). This was how Christ lived his life. And now, he is asking each one of us to do the same! This is the very opposite of what the multi-media and high-tech culture are inducing and seducing us to do.

Self-centered “love.” Christ’s love is other-centered, unconditional, sacrificial, all the way to the end. Can we be faithful followers of Christ in today’s world? Is this really doable for us, who are ordinary people?

The answer is a big YES. Not only that. It is happening right and left, but we tend to take it for granted or even ignore it, amidst the attraction of the opposite, with the full support of the godless media.

Take this instinctive love of a typical mother. She has two small children, aged 5 and 3. Her husband is a construction worker, but they are not able to make both ends meet. So side by side with her maternal role, which she does with such loving dedication, she still makes time to do laundry work for extra income. But she takes care of her two children with such other-centered love that quite often, she feeds her children as much as they need, with just a little rice left for her own self. Until one tragic day, a shooting incident happened just next door between some robbers and cops. Instinctively, she covered her two children with her whole body, but a stray bullet hit her head, and she was pronounced dead on arrival in a public hospital. Just like that. The two children survived by what she did for them, and are now under the care of their father, with the help of their grandparents.

A recent study tells us that the most significant source of happiness for the typical Filipino is family. And the heroic irony of it all is that so many of our OFW’s, both male and female, physically leave their families, go abroad for menial jobs, precisely for the sake of their families. Love for family at the sacrifice of their own selves. This also happens within our own country, when fathers or mothers, sons or daughters, leave their own homes to find work, out of necessity, in some other province or city. A dying to one’s self to give life to others. This is true love indeed.

We have quite a number of Priests and Sisters all over the country who forsake having families of their own, so that they can reach out to as many other families as possible in their pastoral and apostolic work. A number have been killed, especially in Mindanao, for their relentless advocacy and fearless support for justice and compassion. Let us not forget our numerous NGO workers who really love and serve the poor of our country, at the sacrifice of their own selves, and at times even at the risk of their own lives.

Lastly but not least, we have many public servants and government employees who are not corrupt, but rather imbued with moral integrity and compassion for their fellow Filipinos. There are many such citizens quietly doing their jobs without fanfare and popularity. On the contrary, so many of them suffer due to a lack of a real family living wage and other necessary benefits.

Allow me to end with a meaningful quotation:

“Loving as Christ has loved us begins by putting aside our own hopes and wants to realize instead the hopes and wants of others; by caring for and about others with humility and understanding, regardless of the sacrifice demanded of us; by readily making the first move to forgive and to heal, no matter how undeserving. May we realize the powerful sense of resurrection we can bring about by embracing the spirit of Christ’s love in our attitudes and relationships.” (Connections, May 2012).