Love

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I think of the saying, “Love is in the air.”  Love – a small word, but so full of emotion and the responsibility that goes along with it.   What comes to mind when you think or hear that word – LOVE?  Maybe it’s a family member that comes to mind that tries your patience, or maybe a wish or prayer that you’d have someone in your life to share your love with.  During the Mass, when the priest is offering up the gifts to God our Father and holds up both the Body and Blood of our Lord, my silent prayer in my heart is “Lord, help me to love you more.”  Loving with all your heart isn’t always the easy road.  Whether it’s a loved one or Jesus, it requires making a commitment to let love in when it doesn’t make sense or when we may want to give up.  It requires giving up of ourselves many times.  Love requires selflessness, commitment, patience, forgiveness (of ourselves and others), nurturing, and understanding, especially at times when we feel weak, angry, or hurt.  Let’s face it – love takes a lot of work!  But we have Jesus as the perfect example of love, which gives us the courage and strength to open our hearts and let God’s all-encompassing love in.  Only then do we have the strength to make those sacrifices that keep love growing, both in Jesus Christ and those around us.  For just a moment, close your eyes and picture the size of your heart.  Think of its movement, the miracle of each heartbeat, over and over again.  Then visualize God and his Word entering your beating heart, creating more love, stronger beats and your heart expanding more and more, even to the point of overflowing.  Can you feel His love that He is pouring out to you?  So, I think the next time I go to Mass, I will focus even more on my prayer, “Lord, help me to love you more.”  Because if we allow God into our hearts every day, only then will we appreciate what true love is and that it was created from the Heavens above, not from man.  It is not something to be taken lightly, a responsibility that He has entrusted to each of us.  Are you up for the task?   How happy He would be if we made a better attempt at that commitment.

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.  Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.”  Proverbs 3:3-4