True love is not scandalized by anything

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

 

THAT’S how true love is, a love that is a clear sharing of the love that is in God as shown and lived by Christ himself. It’s a love that is not scandalized by anything. It, of course, continues to maintain that what is wrong is wrong, what is sinful and evil is sinful and evil. It does not compromise the truth of things.

But that fact would not take away one’s love for the person who happens to be wrong not only in some matters of opinion but also in some very serious matters, like matters of faith, hope and charity.

It’s a love that clearly shows one is with God and is following the new commandment Christ gave us—that we love one another as he himself has loved us. (cfr. Jn 13,34) It’s a love that was clearly described by St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (13,7)

Instead of being scandalized by evil, anyone who has this true love would rather be motivated to do all he can to help and save that person who is in error. He is not afraid to suffer in that effort. He would consider the suffering and sacrifice involved as his joy—of the kind that transcends the usual human and worldly standards.

This is the love that all of us should aim at acquiring and living. For this, of course, a lot of discipline is involved. First, we have to have recourse to the spiritual and supernatural means of prayer, sacrifice, going to the sacraments.

There should be an unrelenting effort to know Christ so well as to identify ourselves with him more and more. It’s only then that we can be strong enough to take on anything without being scandalized, discouraged or left invincibly bitter by whatever gross stupidities people can commit.

Then, we obviously have to train ourselves humanly to be tough, resilient, patient and always hopeful and optimistic. A lot of discipline is needed here to prevent ourselves from falling into some negative state of mind and heart. We have to learn how to be sport, how to bear and grin in spite of whatever.

All these should be a result of our firm faith that with God, we are always assured of the final victory even if in the standards of the world we may appear to have lost. We, of course, will continue to be human, and our immediate reaction to setbacks, failures and things like that, would always be anger, worry, sadness, but we should not stay long there. We should be quick on the rebound to recover our true spiritual and supernatural bearing.

Thus, every day we should put to practice what Christ has told us—that we should always look for opportunities where we can deny ourselves and carry our cross daily. (cfr. Mt 16,24) We should not wait for suffering and sacrifice to appear and come to us. We have to look for them.

That’s how we can toughen ourselves with the toughness of love that is invincible to whatever evil can come our way. It’s what would enable us not to be scandalized by anything. Instead, we would be moved to intensify our charity, our concern and care for the others!

           Email: roycimagala@gmail.com