Loving Truly

November 11, Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours, Bishop
2 John 4-9 and Luke 17:26-37

In an age where love has become a commodity, its true meaning has become alien to the Gospel meaning of love. Love as a commodity is wrapped, sold, bought, promoted as an object and source of pleasure that can be disposed and exchanged when it no longer pleases.

The meaning of love to this day and generation seems to have changed to go with the disposable convenient culture that proliferates even among us Catholics. This is very sad and very alarming. When we reduce the meaning of love to desire, pleasure, convenience, glitter and gold, we deny the truth about Jesus. The first reading warns us of this. That when we fail to truly love, we lose what Jesus has taught us. We lose what Jesus regained for us.

The Gospel clearly tells us what happens when we fail to love the way Jesus taught us. That is, to love so that the beloved may be saved from damnation. It is not truly loving then when we only seek for pleasure and give in to caprices. There is no middle ground between true love and fake love. The Gospel is clear about this. We either love truly or not. Where we seek love outside the embrace of Jesus, we lose it to the world. We are devoured by sin.

So how then should we love? The readings tell us: that we walk according to his commandments because blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord. A simple question to ask ourselves then is “Is my way of loving aligned to the Lord’s commandments?” “Or is my way of loving according to my way and to the way of the world?” “Do I love like Jesus?” “Or do I love like the ones in romantic movies?” “Do I act my love like Jesus?” “Or is my love pure rhetorics like advertisements?”