Our mess and the revelation of Divine Love

Father Phillip DeVous

Guest

The twentieth century philosopher and theologian, Jacques Maritain observed, “nowadays the devil has made such a mess of everything…that the world will presently (soon) become uninhabitable for anybody but Saints. The rest will drag their lives out in despair…Christian heroism will one day become the sole solution to the problems of life.”

The life of heroic Christian holiness to which Maritain is referring always takes the form of close following of Jesus’ two greatest commandments. They are the non-negotiable core, as well as the summary of Christ’s teaching: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

There is no more vexed word in our language today than that of love. Silly sentiment abounds, completely bleaching out any real meaning to love. Consequently, if we are going to follow the way of Christ and live it heroically, being witnesses to what the real solution to the problems of life are, it is essential we recover a proper understanding of what the meaning of love is — as it is revealed by Jesus Christ.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ reveals to us that, fundamentally, love is not understood to be a feeling. Love has a definite meaning and content that has been revealed in Christ. So, a Christian must purge his heart, soul and mind of all the bumper sticker slogans, Hallmark card sentiments, and social media memes that propagandize us in false, emotionally vacuous and profoundly superficial understandings of what love is.

To begin to understand love we must always start by paying close attention to the Word of God, gazing at the Cross, contemplating adoring the Eucharistic Christ, and offering ourselves in sacrificial service to others. Failing to do that, we will be drawn into the devil’s mess, treating love like a mere feeling, reducing both God and others to objects and making them idols to please us when we feel like it.

Christian love cannot essentially be a feeling because feelings cannot be commanded. I cannot command you to be happy or sad. Christ reveals to us that love is an action in accord with what is true and good. Christ further shows us that love is a sacrificial action in service of the true and the good. If Christ is who he says he is — the Son of God, the Word Made Flesh and the Divine Teacher — then he has the authority to command and create such love.

Considering this, what can be commanded is not feelings, but our choice, our decision, our resolution and our actions in accord with the choice for the love that Jesus Christ reveals and commands. We must note the love that Christ commands is total: “all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. The love being commanded here is total, which also means the sacrifice entailed and called for in such love will be total, both on His part and our own.

So, when Jesus commands us to love with all our heart, soul and mind, what he is commanding is that we love God with the entirety of our person; that we engage our every faculty in loving God; that we offer our whole self to God in love and hold nothing back. God claims our whole being for himself, not in the manner of a tyrant who wishes to exploit or annihilate us, but as a lover who deems us so precious that he will not tolerate the slightest capacity of our person going to waste.

The devil, and our collaboration with the devil through sin, has made a mess out of everything. And the mess that lies at the heart of everything is a totalizing confusion about the true nature of love. We are constantly tempted to us to reduce love’s demands; to avoid the radical revelation of Divine Love given by Jesus Christ.

Christian love is radical. It is a complete sacrifice of total gift, given to us right at the heart of the Holy Eucharist: “This is my body, which will be given up for you” and “Take this … the blood of the new and eternal covenant which will be poured out for you.” This holy, eternal sacrifice of love is the source of that Christian heroism of the saints which will conquer the despair of the world. Radical love, after the pattern of his own, is what is Jesus commands of us. For the disciple, there is no alternative.

Father Phillip W. DeVous is the pastor of Sts. Peter & Paul Parish in California, KY.