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February 6, 2019What does it mean to love? It seems like a simple question. In a very real sense, for a man who believes in Jesus Christ, it should be simple, as simple as breathing.
Yet for modern men, living in a fallen world, love seems harder to define. With all the confusion about current definitions of love, many men are left believing that love is simply a thing that they had better get while the getting’s good.
But what is love? A feeling? An emotion? How should modern Catholic men define it? Love today seems to mean many different things: affection, devotion, passion, addiction. We throw the word around so easily:
“I love my family.”
“I love my dog.”
“I love ice cream.”
“I love my favorite pair of shoes!”
But is this love?
There have been many books written about love, and many stories and songs that celebrate its power. As men, we often confuse love with lust. We look for the pleasure above all else – what’s in it for me. But in our struggle to find the ultimate intimacy we often discover only disappointment, as we and our lovers fall short of the false ideals we desire.
Families or friends too so often fail us in the frailty of their human condition. Possessions, prominence, power, and prestige – all the things we love and seek so intently to gain will fade away to dust. In the end, none of these can provide the love men truly need.
Too many men have been let down by love. They see it as an illusion, a fairy tale that cannot come true, no matter how hard they try to believe. The love men feel for their belongings, often leaves them empty. It so often crowds out their families and their faith as they cling to a false hope of some ego-driven, unattainable goal, the source of which is a selfish heart.
But here is a secret men need to learn, one that has been shouted from the rooftops and whispered in the hidden places, but missed in our futile struggle to have and to hold the world’s brand of love. If men would just take hold of this secret it would change their lives…
Love… IS A VERB!
Love isn’t something you “feel” – although real love touches your feelings in the deepest part of your soul. Love is something you do, sometimes at the cost of all you have or all you are. Real love gives until it hurts, draining us of all we are, until we surrender to the One outside ourselves. But as we give, we receive. When we spend ourselves in love for another or for the world, we may not see a return for our investment – at least from a worldly perspective. But when finally we lose our lives for love we discover a treasure in a place where corrosion cannot enter and moth cannot destroy.
There is a love men are offered that goes beyond the words, beyond the poetry and passion and all the many misunderstandings we ascribe to the word. When we experience this love – this real love – it becomes a part of us, as beautiful as breathing. It enters our hearts and flows from within like each breath we take. It is as pure, as simple, and as real as it gets. It shapes our lives and defines us as men. It is a power beyond every petty power we have ever sought.
And despite what men may think, love is also a need, a need deep down in our souls, an emptiness that cannot be fully filled except by the One who emptied himself for us in love. While we try to nail love down, he nailed it up – up on a wooden cross.
There is a love so powerful and so complete that it led the Father to give up his Only Son so that we could be touched by that love. There is a love so passionate, so pure, and so perfect, that it led the Son to live among us as a man, giving him eyes to see into our pain, hands to heal, and feet to walk the weary way of salvation. It gave him the joy to embrace and endure the cross, scorning its shame, all for love – all for love.
In God’s holy book, every chapter, every verse, every stroke of the pen is a letter of love that men cannot ignore. The love of God existed from eternity past and will continue to Kingdom Come without end. Every moment of salvation’s story led up to the cross, and continues to lead us to the day when only love will remain.
When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Is the face someone you can accept or even stand? Or is it someone who is full of flaws, missing in action, beyond healing and hope? Look again, for there is One who sees you with different eyes, who sees you as the man you are and loves you anyway. And this same One sees you as the man you can be in him.
Look up at the stars and marvel at their magnitude. Look at majestic mountains and ponder the depths of the seas. Look at the incredible complexity of all creation and be struck with the wonder and awe at it all.
Love painted the colors of the sky and set the stars in the heavens. Love filled the world with beauty, order, and purpose. But as amazing as all that is, the most amazing thing of all is that the same God who created the universe, created you and me – because of love.
As a man, you could have a well-trained tongue to speak the words of angels, eyes to see the future or understand the mysteries of life, power and faith and gifts to share, or a life surrendered in service to the world – but without love, it is NOTHING!
Love is patient, love is kind, emptied of envy, broken of boastfulness, humble, forbearing, hungry for the truth. Power and prophecy, tongues and treasures, they will all cease – but love endures. Now we know in part, but one day we shall know love’s fullness – even as we are fully known.
Men, we are called to leave our childish ways behind and embrace the greatest of all the virtues, to come to the place where love was laid down, only to be taken up again. In Jesus, we can bring our faults and our failings, our sins and our short-sightedness, all that we are, all that we have done or failed to do, and all our dreams as meager men, and leave them at the cross. In Jesus, we can let go of all we thought love was or hoped it would be, and embrace what it truly is!
If you are still unsure of love’s call on your heart, let this be the moment when you finally see! Let go and come to the cross. Fall down in your brokenness and look up to see the One who was broken for you! Rise up as true men who love with their lives, who embrace the fullness of God’s love in surrender and holy fear. Jesus loves you, just as you are; and he loves you for all you will be in him. His love does conquer all! His love is all you need!
Love is forgiveness for failure. Love is the power to persevere. Love is the grace to start again. Love is the passion to live out the potential of all you were made to be.
May we as men accept the love of Christ, the One who loves us unconditionally, perfectly, and eternally, the One who calls us to be the men we were meant to be. In the end, it is love – true sacrificial, self-giving love – that will remain.
So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1 John 4:16, RSVCE)