“Love one another as I have loved you.” John 13:34
The passage above is often misunderstood and watered down to mean a kind of feel-good happy love. But Jesus says, “As I have loved you.” And He says it just before He is crucified and dies for us. Followers of Jesus Christ are called to the same kind of sacrificial love. We should love one another, when it’s hard, when we can barely like one another, when we are angry with one another. But that love should be for the good of the other. We must even be willing to die for the other.
Once long ago, I was struggling with a family conflict. I was hurt, angry, and discouraged to the point of sickness. At the time, I was not very strong in my faith, but I did pray and believe in Jesus. As I prayed for guidance on how to deal with the offending relatives, this simple message came to me: “Love them anyway.”
For the next 30 years, I sincerely tried to do that. As I drew closer to Christ and His Church, I tried to show these same offending relatives the love of God. But nothing ever really changed, and finally last year things got bad enough that I withdrew from contact with these particular relatives and now I just pray for them from afar. Self-protection, not self-sacrifice, but it is the best I can do. After countless days of heartache and many sleepless nights, after watching the damage done to other family members, after being maligned and hurt so many times I lost count, I have withdrawn from the battle. Do I still love them? Not in a feel-good happy way. But to stop enabling such people may be the most loving path I can take.
I put them in Jesus’s hands, in Mary’s heart, and pray a Memorare for them each morning. I pray a little prayer I once heard on the radio:
I love you, I bless you, I forgive you, I release you to the Holy Spirit.
I pray St. Teresa of Calcutta’s little prayer to the Blessed Mother:
Mary, Mother of Jesus, be a mother to me now.
And I remember. Jesus also was betrayed, hurt, and finally killed, by the very people He came to save. He loves us anyway. He forgives us anyway. If we just turn to Jesus in repentance, forgiving others as He has forgiven us, trusting in Him, and spending a lifetime preparing ourselves to enter into His presence, our Lord will do as He promised:
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning,
wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away."
The One who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new."
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