To listen is love’s first duty – Jan 25
Have you ever fallen head over heels in love? What happens? You see in that person something that no one else sees and you desire to spend time with the person to get to know the person better. You enjoy the person’s company.
So it is with God, God loves us very much and wants us to know that love. But so many times we are concerned with the business of the day that we actually forget the one who loved us into being and we fail to acknowledge the presence of God in our lives. Yet, God waits each day for us to respond. On one hand we say we love God but still we do not find time to be in God’s presence.
For any relationship to develop, whether it is with another human person or with God – through the person of Christ, we must find time and ways to seek out that lover.
John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have eternal life.” That is the ultimate love. And in 1 John 4:20 we read that if anyone says, “I love God” and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
So ultimately our lives are tied up in experiencing God’s love for us, and experiencing love for our brothers and sisters in return. Did you ever wonder what is missing from a person’s life that they can end the life of another through violence and be unrepentant? The experience of being loved deeply and loving another deeply is tied up with living humanly.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
Paul Tillich, the German-American Christian existentialist philosopher and theologian – who is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century, said the first duty of love is to listen. Are we listening to the voice of our Beloved Christ?
– Sr Juliet Rajah CHF, Directress of Catechetics