{"id":964,"date":"2013-02-03T12:24:18","date_gmt":"2013-02-03T17:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=964"},"modified":"2013-02-03T12:25:24","modified_gmt":"2013-02-03T17:25:24","slug":"964","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/964\/","title":{"rendered":"God is Love. We are Created to Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C<\/a>
\nJeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
\n1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13
\nLuke 4:21-30
\nFebruary 3, 2013<\/p>\n

Our reading today from Paul is probably the most often picked second reading for weddings.\u00a0 Sometimes, I think couples just pick it because it has the word \u201clove\u201d in it a lot.\u00a0 It used six times but the whole passage really is about love.\u00a0 I always tell the couple they can have this reading but that they should think about what it says about love and not just pick it for the word “love”.<\/p>\n

That makes it fitting for weddings.\u00a0 Marriage is meant to be about love, two people coming together in love.\u00a0 But the word love should not be taken lightly.<\/p>\n

It can be like the word \u201cfriend\u201d.\u00a0 To me a friend is someone we are close to and do things with just to be with them.\u00a0 Then there is Facebook.\u00a0 Maybe it started out great but I\u2019ve seen people brag about having 400 friends on Facebook as a milestone.\u00a0 It\u2019s no milestone.\u00a0 They\u2019re not your friend.\u00a0 A friend is someone you share a close connection with and really know who they are.\u00a0 Not just everyone friending everyone else to increase their numbers.<\/p>\n

What does the word \u201clove\u201d really mean to us?<\/p>\n

Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love God and the second is to love our neighbor.\u00a0 We are to love everyone but love comes in different levels.\u00a0 In love we are to care about everyone, doing what we can to make sure everyone has what they need.<\/p>\n

But love goes deeper than just doing things for one another.\u00a0 And married love is meant to be the deepest form of human love there is.<\/p>\n

Paul describes what love is like, patient and kind.\u00a0 Paul also describes what love is not, jealous, pompous, inflated, rude, or self-serving.\u00a0 We think of these words as adjectives describing love but fully understood and lived they are not just adjectives.\u00a0 They are verbs, meaning actions that we live in love.<\/p>\n

In speaking of love, Jesus says there is no greater love than to lay down one\u2019s life one\u2019s friends.\u00a0 Jesus sets a literal example of this in his Crucifixion when he freely gives up his life for us on the Cross.<\/p>\n

Jesus sets the perfect example of love.\u00a0 God is love.<\/p>\n

God isn\u2019t simply an example of love.\u00a0 He defines what it means to love.\u00a0 God loves every one of us more than we can ever imagine.<\/p>\n

God knows us better than we know ourselves. \u00a0God knows us before we are conceived in our mother\u2019s womb.\u00a0 As he says to Jeremiah, before we were in our mother\u2019s womb, he has had a purpose for us.\u00a0 He has an appointed calling for us.<\/p>\n

That appointed purpose is always good because God loves us.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter what we have done, God wants us to know his love.\u00a0 That\u2019s why God sends Jesus his Son to die for us.\u00a0 Because there is nothing God won\u2019t do for us.<\/p>\n

There is nothing we can do that irrevocably separates us from God.\u00a0 I say irrevocably because we can separate ourselves from God.\u00a0 It\u2019s called sin.\u00a0 In venial sin, we do things that hurt our relationship with God.\u00a0 It shouldn\u2019t seem that strange to us.\u00a0 We do the same things in our relationships with other people.\u00a0 Then there is mortal sin, that breaks the relationship.\u00a0 Again we do the same thing in our human relationships.<\/p>\n

The good news is that even when we do sin, God can fix our relationship with him.\u00a0 In fact, he\u2019s dying just to fix it.\u00a0 The problem is we have to let him.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t let him, God can\u2019t fix it.<\/p>\n

Can we stop God?<\/p>\n

Technically, God can do what God wants.\u00a0 But God gives us free will and he doesn\u2019t force himself on us.\u00a0 God is eager to forgive our sins but he wants for us.\u00a0 And when we come to him in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, confessing our sins, he gives us the great gift of forgiveness.<\/p>\n

And he does so out of love.<\/p>\n

If you go back and read the passage from Paul before the one we read today, you will find Paul speaking highly of the gifts we have been given but today he reminds us of something better than those gifts, love.<\/p>\n

We are created in God\u2019s image.\u00a0 We are created to love.\u00a0 We are created to be loved.<\/p>\n

Let’s think about “gifts” in a different sense, the gifts we receive and give.<\/p>\n

Sometimes when we get gifts we really enjoy the \u201cthings\u201d we receive.\u00a0 It may be the perfect game, a great toy, a good book.\u00a0 But when you think about it, in maturity is the \u201cthing\u201d what makes it so great?<\/p>\n

What is greater than the thing we give?<\/p>\n

Love.\u00a0 Think of it this way.\u00a0 When we are little children, the gifts we give our mom or dad generally aren\u2019t worth much money.\u00a0 Why do we give them these gifts?\u00a0 Because we love them.\u00a0 I\u2019m betting some of our parents have fonder memories of the little simple gifts we give as children than some gift that costs more money as an adult.\u00a0 Love is of infinite value.<\/p>\n

Love is what we are created for.\u00a0 Married love is meant to be the highest form of human love.\u00a0 Married love is for better, for worse, in sickness and in health.\u00a0 It is a sign of God\u2019s love for us.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s love never fails.\u00a0 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.\u00a0 May our love be the same way.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13 Luke 4:21-30 February 3, 2013 Our reading today from Paul is probably the most often picked second reading for weddings.\u00a0 Sometimes, I think couples just pick it because it has the word \u201clove\u201d in it a lot.\u00a0 It used six times but …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘God is Love. We are Created to Love’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sMTPk-964","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":966,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions\/966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}