Willingness to die for love

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

IF our love is true, we should be willing to die for love of God and for everybody else. This is what Christ showed us and also commanded us. He said that we should love one another as he loved and continues to love us. And we know that his love for us culminated in his offering of his life on the cross to assume all our sins and conquer them with his death and resurrection.

In other words, a love that is not willing to die for the beloved is certainly not true love. The willingness to die for the beloved is the clear proof that our love is true or that our love is the same love Christ has for us. When we affirm that we love God or that we love someone, we should see to it that we mean that love to include the willingness to die for God or for someone.

This truth of faith about love is somehow proclaimed in that gospel episode where Christ asked Peter three times if he, Peter, loved Christ. (cfr. Jn 21,15-19) When Peter consistently answered in the affirmative, Christ proceeded by describing in so many words how Peter would die for the love for Christ and for the Church which is all of us.

We need to understand then that it is this love-driven death that will lead us to eternal life. We cannot reach heaven if we are not willing to die for our beloved, like what Christ did. Our willingness to die out of love should replicate the willingness to die of Christ who is the very embodiment of true love.

The secret, therefore, of having our death as a way to our resurrection and eternal life is to die with Christ. Only with him can our death and resurrection become our victory over sin and death. St. Paul encapsulated this most wonderful truth of our faith when he said, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Rom 6,5)

No wonder then that Christ culminated his redemptive work with his passion and death on the cross. Only then would his own resurrection take place. Christ made this point clear when after being rightly identified by Peter as ‘the Christ of God,’ he proceeded to talk about his passion, death and resurrection.

“The Son of Man must suffer greatly,” he said, “and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” (Lk 9,22)

We have to deepen our belief that with Christ’s resurrection, sin and death have been definitively conquered, and a new life in God is given to us. We are now a new creation, with the power of Christ to conquer sin and death and everything else that stands in the way of our becoming true children of God.

And so, we have every reason to think that we can live forever in Christ over whom death no longer has dominion. In spite of whatever, we have every reason to be happy and confident, as long as we are faithful to Christ.

We just need to realize more deeply that Christ is alive and wants to live his life with us, because we are patterned after him. Let us not miss this most golden opportunity.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com