Healing Redemptive Love
"LOVE REDEEMS. DESPITE all the lovelessness that surrounds us, nothing has been able to block our longing for love, the intensity of our yearning. The understanding that love redeems appears to be a resilient aspect of the heart's knowledge. The healing power of redemptive love lures us and calls us toward the possibility of healing. We cannot for the presence of the heart's knowledge. Like all great mysteries, we are all mysteriously called to love no matter the conditions of our lives, the degree of our depravity or despair. The persistence of this call gives us reason to hope. Without hope, we cannot return to love. Breaking our sense of isolation and opening up the window of opportunity, hope provides us with a reason to go forward. It is a practice of positive thinking. Being positive, living in a permanent state of hopelessness, renews the spirit. Renewing our faith in love's promise, hope is our covenant."
- ALL ABOUT LOVE
BY BELL HOOKS
Personal Reflection/Insight:
During the week, most especially at those moments when I was not feeling well due to some physical pain, I took time to think back of my past experiences, making a quick survey how complicated and difficult those moments when I was longing and searching for possible breakthrough of hope. Then love nestled gently like the rains of early spring in my heart's desert place. Then and there, I was strengthened, renewed and rejuvenated by uncontainable feelings for another human being.
Being married and in a committed love relationship now, at times I pause and look at this person whom God has given me to share my life with. And to be honest, I am still mesmerized my the mystery and beauty of God reflected in her, the kindness of heart, the comely appearance, the gentle voice, the hearty laughter, the healing hands. Despite the humble situation we are in our place under the sun, we take it moment by moment to continue to share, care and love one another. love truly makes life exciting and bearable to live, especially when you share it with the one God has chosen for you.
The healing process and love's redeeming power comes piece by piece in the daily small gestures of thoughtfulness, understanding, concern and hope for the better promise of tomorrow. Henri Nouwen's image of the wounder healer comes again in a poignant way. Struck and wounded by love's error searching in the past, now we become angels of hope, friends of peace, healers of love for each other. At the resurrection, no wonder why Jesus was so spontaneous in showing his wounded hands, feet and heart to his fearful disciples. He witnessed to them the true courageous, brave and pure power of love. He still loves each of them and all of us despite the pain and the death He suffered out of love. In being apostles of love, we can also be resurrected redeemers of a world bereft of love as it is truly is.
This a personal reflection based on John 13:1-20, The Last Supper Meal
One of the common public worship services by the three major Christian Churches: Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican is the celebration of the Holy Eucharist or Holy Mass.
Here, I would like to share few significant points, which could be a basis for further reflection and sharing in a small group of Christians doing a Bible study.
The first thing that John wants us to reflect is that the whole of Christ's life and death is an expression of His special gratuitous self giving love for his disciples. "He had always loved those who were in the world, but now he showed how perfect his love was."(John 13:1 The New Jerusalem Bible). This means literally that since the time he called them up to the end, he has always loved them. This brings us to meditate on the call of Jesus to intimacy with him. In human experience, what does it mean to be intimate? I conceive intimacy as a home or an environment of a true maturing love between Jesus and his present day followers, between husbands and wives, among friends, among communities, etc. M. Scott Peck's definition of love is one that I am most convinced as a classic expression of what really love is. He defines love as "The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." In her National Bestseller book, "all about love" Bell Hooks built her idea on that and further said, "When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another's spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive." She also said, "When we are loving we openly and honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment and trust." For me, this is precisely the kind of intimacy that Jesus left as a perpetual legacy to his beloved disciples in that upper room of the Last Supper Meal on the night before he suffered and died. He gave us love's highest standard, that of giving up oneself for the sake of the beloved. "No greater love man has, than to offer his life for his friends."(John 15:13) Thus, intimacy is breaking through the barriers of personal differences, of time and space, of boundaries and cultures and simply being there to sincerely interfere, through the little and great acts of kindness and love, while allowing oneself to be also disturbed and challenged by the words and life of the one loved, for the sake of promoting spiritual growth, achieving mutual happiness and fulfillment, and like Christ, doing everything well in love.
This brings us now to the second important thing that John wants to drive at, i.e. humble service, "He got up from table, removed his outer garment and, taking a towel, wrapped it round his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and wipe them with the towel he was wearing."(John 13:4-5) In the Jewish custom this gesture of Jesus is very symbolic of the humility of a slave serving his master. How can we do the same act of humble service. Maybe we can understand this by looking at the angle and feeling of the one who is served. When someone serves me as I order something to eat in a restaurant I feel superior to that person. The cliche', "The customer is always right" is often used to claim one's right and superiority in an ordinary human setting. Jesus revolutionized a change in this mentality. His kind of leadership is one of being always disposed to be of service, rather than being served. A further note I would like to look closer is the defiant attitude of Peter when Jesus approached him to wash his feet. To teach him a lesson in true discipleship, Jesus told him that if he persists in his denial of the Lord's service the consequence will be, "...you will have no share with me."(John 13:8) which is a Semitic phrase of cutting him off from any further relationship with the Lord and from all share in Jesus' ministry and in his glory, because he does not appreciate his Master's outlook. Behind the act and the reply that Jesus made to Peter, he explained that his sacrifice has already achieved the purification required in the Mosaic Law. "Every branch that does not bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more. You are pruned already, by means of the word I have spoken to you."(John 15:2-3) Also we find another relevant text, "But if we live our lives in the light, as he is in the light, we are in union with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."(1 John 1:7-8)
Lastly, the third and very important thing that John wants to stress is Hospitality. "I tell you most solemnly, whoever welcomes the one I send welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me."(John 13:20) By calling all his disciples to eat with him the Passover Meal just before he suffered the brutality of crucifixion, Jesus gave us all the core of the very heart of God, which is hospitality. I came from the Philippines, a country known by those who come to visit us a a country gifted with the gospel value of hospitality. In the different towns and cities around the Philippine archipelago, especially during the "Fiesta" celebration in honor of the Patron Saint of the town, all visitors are welcomed to eat in every home. Not only that the best food are put on the table but they are served both with smile and love from the Filipino host family. Here, in the very act of Jesus at the Last Supper Meal, hospitality is very much connected with intimacy and service. When I am intimate with someone, I also gladly welcome that person into my life and I am willing to offer the gift and the good that I have for that person in order to make the joy of fellowship complete. As a former Benedictine monk in Pecos, New Mexico, one of the best things I remember and still try to live is a tenet in the Rule of St. Benedict urging us to see the very person of Christ in every guest who comes to the monastery, which in itself is a practical application of the last supper admonition of Jesus. As we continue to live our christian life, the daily challenge is to make our hearts, our homes, our persons as the very sure place of the hospitality of the heart of Jesus - a heart pierced by the soldier's sword, yet a heart that continues to accept, to forgive, to love, to offer his very last drop of blood for each one of us.
In closing, we can ponder on the mysticism of love from the book, The Way of Love, The Last Meditation of Antony de Mello, "The symphony of life moves on but you keep looking back, clinging to a few bars of the melody, blocking your ears to the rest of the music, thereby producing disharmony and conflict between what life is offering you and what you are clinging to. Then comes the tension and anxiety which are the very death of love and the joyful freedom that love brings. For love and freedom are only found when one enjoys each note as it arises, then allows it to go, so as to be fully receptive to the notes that follow."
