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The Subject of My Conference Tonight is Love

Love should be at the center of every human being’s life. Christian, non-christian, believer or non-believer, young or old, man or woman; we are all in need of love and its infinite mystery of life. Philosophers of all times teach us that love is the key to individual and social happiness. Love, as we read about it in the New Testament and learn it through the life of Jesus Christ; love is an event that reveals itself through an all-inclusive desire of communion. No one is to be excluded from the range of our loving. So, love should be for everyone, and it should be overflowing, pure, spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless, and creative. It should be like the living water that we would like to drink. As a matter of fact, the monastery is called a school of love, and this holy art the monk learns by sitting still and listening to the “streams of living water.”

The New Testament calls this love Agape. This love is much more than romantic love and therefore much more than friendship. As St. Paul teaches us in the first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13, Love (Agape) is understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill toward all. It is overflowing, abundant, and seeks no personal return. As St. John in his first letter teaches us, God is Love, and in the Gospel, he is forever reminding us that this love is operating in the human heart. We have been given the universal vocation to love as God loves, without any why, but simply love with the love that loves to love.

We have now entered into the very mystery of life, the contemplative life. Love is the contemplative way, a way that asks us to know the true nature of our Beloved. To discover and contemplate in His loving Heart our every thought, word and deed; that is, the contemplative life, and always a good and beautiful life.

We are being called to perform the most noble act of pure love, loving without why. Here, you must learn to love everyone not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, but because God loves them and God loves them through the love that He has so freely and abundantly filled your heart with. Did not Jesus say to all Christians (serious followers of Christ): “Love your enemies”? He did not say: “Like your enemies.” Journeying with Christ is not an emotional trip, where you encounter some pretty nice people that you like. It is a journey of death and of life, where you encounter some pretty bad people that are impossible to like, but that I must learn to love.

Jesus Christ, teaches us that love is greater than any evil, it is even stronger than death. The resurrection is the victory of love. And we set the resurrection in motion every time we love. This should remind us that love is greater than liking because love goes behind the shadows of evil and seeks out the hidden light: Love is understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill towards all. Unfortunately, many of us have reduced Christ’s message to personal usage and instead of contemplating the loving eyes of an always beautiful Beloved, we gaze blindly on our good old plastic Jesus. We like but we do not love, and we think that this is okay, and it is not okay.

Have we not seen enough hate? Our television, radio, and newspaper are full of evil, violence and war… have we not seen already enough? Did we forget that the Lord said: “Love your enemies” and was it not taught to us that the Lord said to us: “Vengeance is Mine”?

We have been called to learn the most holy art of loving. We must learn how to conquer non-violently the forces of evil with the force of love, Gods Love. In a little while, we shall be celebrating the holy feast of Christmas, my brothers and sisters, if there is to be peace on earth and goodwill toward all men and women, then we must convert our lives to this ultimate truth: “God is Love.”

I pray tonight that love will burst your hearts wide open so that they may become a stream of living water: overflowing, pure, spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless, and creative.