Leave-taking of Pentecost; The Holy Prophet Amos (8th c. BC); Venerable Jerome, Presbyter of Stridonium (420)
No fasting or abstention from foods.
Read
Romans 1:7-12; Matthew 5:42-48
Love, love, love, never counting the cost! These words of Catherine Doherty’s Little Mandate, lived day in and out by the members of the Madonna House Apostolate throughout the world (and those that emulate them), capture, in essence, the teaching our Lord as found in today’s Gospel reading.
What is love? It’s a question asked by many throughout the ages—philosophers, artists, mothers and fathers, children, monastics, cooks, carpenters, engineers, writers, the Bard, theologians, the homeless, the rich, musicians (like the musical group Haddaway in 1993)—people from every walk of life and from every age. We all want to know because we all need love and we all want to love.
From our Lord’s own words and example, we can state, at the very minimum, that love is the seeking of the good for another person by a total gift of self to that other person without seeking a return of that gift but being requited in a similar return in kind. This necessarily will cost me at times, especially when there is no return. But, as Christians, we do not look at the cost or the return. We give the gift of self to another in seeking their good.
St. Paul understood this within marriage when in Ephesians 5 he wrote about wives and husbands loving each other just as Christ loved the Church (that’s us) and gave His life for her purity and sanctity.
Love costs. But it doesn’t matter.
Let’s renew today our commitment to be just like our Lord Jesus, to strive to emulate the way in which he loves us.
Love, love, love, never counting the cost!
mw