We need to balance our Easter hope with
the section of a society opposed to God.
We belong to the world, and to the creator of the world. We are not out
of it. Neither God is. Either we chose to live in the world, where we belong as
long as we live, or in a world of dreams and future hope, forgetting the
present.
As Christians we are Easter people of
joy and hope, while believing in a God who is Lord of earth and heaven, who in
Jesus has defeated sin and death. All that is true. But we cannot look for a
"cheap grace" interpretation of Christianity, where, as we hear in
the film ‘3-Idiots, “All is well”. Neither must we succumb to hoping that “all will
be well." Remember the fierce ‘war’ continues, be it physical (as in
Israel now, Religious, communal) and spiritual. Well, we can live for ‘cheap
grace’ for momentary satisfaction with the belief of hope in life after. For
example, we can draw peace for time being through personal adoration before the
Sacrament of Eucharist exposed for oneself, for a subjective satisfaction.
Humans are much deep, capable of loving others with God’s love,
as one lives on this earth. God is love. It means, God gifts himself to the other
through self-emptying. To have this God is to be what God is - to love
with full of hope and joy. In short, God is ‘to love’ in action (a verb, not a
noun) right now. In this sense, the joy of obeying the commandment in the
present: “love one another as I love you." The laws, rituals, traditions, commands,
dogmas, doctrines and devotions, are meant to make us more adept at loving here
and now. They are meant to awaken hope-filled love in our present lives.
To love with God’s love, one needs to
“remain” in his love. God’s love as a grace is ever poured on our nature, but
remaining in that love depends on our action to love. God’s love dwells in our
hearts, bodies, and minds in the measure that we give it away. When we enter
into a hope-filled stream of grace, then the divine love “remains” in us.
Therefore, hoping now itself, is to cooperate with God’s loving grace. Thus we
participate in the love that God is. Hoping right now in our life is a play,
between conditional and unconditional love. That’s how we can grow in the hope
of loving.
The loving hope is lived with the spirit
of Truth, in words and deeds. It is a witness to God’s concrete love for the
world here and now. We testify to this love, by loving hopefully, in the midst
of the struggles, suffering and dying of people. Through sharing in their
sufferings we are able to participate in the hope-filled life of God. Living
with hope-filled spirit in the present, prompts us to speak the truth. With
this hope-filled spirit of Truth, we share the love of the Father with
humanity. To sum up, a hope-filled love incarnates God in the existing world.
No comments:
Post a Comment