“LOVE IS TOTAL”. This
is a statement from the ANAWIM WAY Booklet in
its meditation on the Commandment of Love which our Lord Jesus Christ
said in reply to a question of a scribe as to ‘which is the first of all the
commandments’. Jesus replied: “This is
the first: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! Therefore you shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your
strength.’ This is the second. ‘You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Elaborating
further on the said statement it says: “If we deliberately exclude anyone from
it, even our enemy, it is not love anymore.
We are unfaithful to ourselves when we refuse to love someone.”
The said
statement made me examine my own
conscience. Do I really love everyone,
even my own enemy, or those who have hurt me in one way or another? I must acknowledge that I still harbor some
hurt feelings from those who have done something to me which I consider wrong or unjust. I am still waiting for a kind of apology from
these people. It seems, however, that I
shall be waiting in vain. So, the
question for me now is: How can I love
these people who have been unjust to me?
It is said:
“To err is human, but to forgive is divine.”
This means that the act of forgiving is a GRACE coming from God alone. Man by himself is not able to forgive. He needs a special grace from God to enable
him to forgive. Hence, if I sincerely desire to be faithful to
myself in loving everyone, even my enemies,
I must pray for this special grace of forgiveness from God.
Now,
therefore, I am confronted with this challenge:
When and how will I pray for this special grace of forgiveness, such that all the hurt feelings in my heart
would be removed and my love would be really total to include everyone, even my
enemies?
I realize
that even the act of praying is a grace from God. Hence, I must accept my inability to do
anything without the enabling grace of God.
I am now aware that without God I am nothing and without God I can do
nothing. Everything depends on God. This realization is helping me to bend my knees and beg for all the graces I
need in order to live as God wants me to live and to love as God wants me to
love. I trust that God in His infinite
Goodness and Love will answer my prayer in ways that will be best for me -
To love even those who have wronged me.
by: Buddy Cagurangan
June 3, 2012
