True Love

From Our Spiritual Directors:

“Love each other as I have loved you.” Jn. 13:34

Love of God cannot exist in a vacuum; it is necessary for it to overflow into how you love oUr brothers and sisters. You cannot love our invisible God in heaven if you ignore the visible suffering neighbor right in front of you.

True love means to love the other simply as other. It means to love the other solely for their good and welfare.

Sunshine Children's Home, just outside of Maumee, serves the care and housing needs of children with developmental disabilities. They care for those with the most profound handicaps who can do nothing to care for themselves or communicate with others. They rely on others for all things.

The deacons from our parish, and the men that are currently preparing to be deacons, visit the residents there every month for an hour to spend time with them. We pray with them and for them and we give them God's blessing and communicate with them however we can. It is a beautiful, gratifying experience to be with these angels of God for an hour.

The focus of this story though is the nurses, nurses’ aides and general care givers who lovingly provide the care for all of these loving people 24 hours a day. They too are angels. They do everything for them. They feed them,they provide their medical care, they talk to them and keep them clean, everything they require; twenty-four hours per day. The residents could not exist without them.

You might think that this is an undesirable job, but I found out that most of them love what they do. When I talked to the care givers, one nurse told me that she had taken another nursing job in a hospital, but she came back toSunshine Home three months later to be with the residents there. Another nurse told me that this was the best nursing position she had ever had. These caregivers demonstrate the love that Jesus lived and taught: to love each other simply for the good of the other.

God commands us to love; to accept and to give only what is good, lovely, just, and pure and to reject whatever is contrary. He puts us first in his thoughts and everything He does flows from his love for us (1 John 3:1, 4:7-8,16).

Do we put him first in our thoughts? God loved us first (1 John 4:19) and our love for him is a response to his overwhelming goodness and kindness towards us.

God loves us wholly, completely, and perfectly for our sake - there is no limit, no holding back, no compromising on his part. His love is not subject to changing moods or circumstances. When God gives, he gives generously,abundantly, freely, and without setting conditions to the gift of his love. His love does not waver, but is firm,consistent, and constant. He loves us in our weakness - in our fallen and sinful condition.

That is why the Father sent his only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to redeem us from slavery to sin and its disordered cravings, desires, passions, and addictions.

Prayer:

Lord you ask us to live with our hearts open to You and our hands open and extended to our love of neighbor, the vulnerable and forgotten. When our love for you grows cold or narrow, warm it by your mercy.When we fail to see You in the poor, the stranger or the lonely, open them wide. Make our lives a living bridge -anchored in Your heart, and reaching out to touch the world.

Deacon Denny Scherger, Cursillo 115, St. Joseph Parish, Maumee