The Beatitudes of Love

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BLESSED ARE THOSE

WHO LET LOVE CHOOSE THEM FREELY -

1   Love chooses us first. "It was not you who choose me, but I who chose you..." (John 15:16)

2   Love is pure, free gift. It can only freely received. It cannot be bought, forced, extorted, or possessed. It is gratuitous.

3   Love humbles, for nothing we do or cannot do will change God's love.

4   When we discover that we love someone, we simply recognize that love has already taken hold of us before we became aware of it. We did not initiate it; yet we respond.

BLESSED ARE THOSE

WHOSE LOVE SEEKS WHAT IS BEST FOR THEIR LOVED ONES - 

1   Love seeks what is best for the beloved,  God's plan is what is good for us, not just what is good for God. 

2   Love helps one be real, to be one truest self, to fulfill one's mission in life. 

3   One's true nature involves becoming creative and generative - bearing life-giving fruit.  "It was not you who chose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain ... This I command you: love on another." (John 15:16-17)

BLESSED ARE THOSE

WHO FORGIVE - 

1   Those who love see people and relationship as they are, not what they want to see. 

2   Love sees beyond weaknesses and failings.  "Love is not blind - it sees more, not less.  But because it sees more, it is willing to see less." (Rabbi Julius Gordon) 

3   "I have come to seek and save those who are lost." (Luke 19:11) 

4   "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." (John 13:34)  The newness lies in hte way Jesus loves and forgives - totally, unconditionally, faithfully.

BLESSED ARE THOSE

WHO LIVE LOVE AS A CHOICE, NOT A FEELING -

1   Love is more than a feeling; it's s continuous choice, a commitment, a response.

2   Love chooses the beloved regardless of one's feelings and prior to the other's response. "Blessed are the merciful ..." (Matthew 5:7)

3   Love is inclusive: "for God makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on just and unjust" (Matthew 5:45). "How Christian you are is not who you like, but how you treat those who irritated people you know." (Mark Thibodeaux SJ)

4   "Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation." (Rabindranath Tagore)

BLESSED ARE THOSE

WHO LOVE BEYOND SUFFERING -

1   Ultimately, those whose love suffer. Often, they stand with those suffer.

2   Those who truly love meet the Cross. Love risks vulnerability and rejection and looks beyond suffering, Mother Teresa: "I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love."

BLESSED ARE THOSE

WHO LOVE DEEPLY AND FREELY - 

1   The dynamism of love expands one's heart: circle of care and concern; towards ever-widening community, integrity, and freedom.  "Love does not consist in two people gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)  

2   There is only one love but many expressions.  All forms of love lead to God - fullness of life, freedom, inner peace, creativity, willingness to suffer for the beloved.  All forms of love lead to the Source of love - Love.  Or toward Home. 

3   Don't confuse love for its ten thousand imitations.  Don't confuse the finger pointing to the moon for the moon itself; or the means for the end. 

4   Detach from the relationships which promise emotional thrills and satisfaction but really disengages you from others, God, yourself, or the truth. 

5   Nuture relationships which better lead you to God. "No one has ever seen God.  Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us." (1 John 4:12)

BLESSED ARE THOSE

WHO GIVE OF THEMSELVES THROUGH ACTS OF LOVE AND JUSTICE - 

1   Don't merely talk about love; bear it through action.  Saint Ignatius: "Love ought to show itself in deeds more than in words.  Love consists in sharing what one is with those one loves."  Express love habitually, tangibly and visibly. 

2   Saint Therese of Lisieux:  Love lies not in the magnitude of the deed but in the totality of the self-giving.  Extravagant gestures of love lie not in the size of deed, but in the extend of the self-giving.  Mother Teresa: "What matters in the gift of yourself, the degree of love you put into each of your actions." 

3   Service_Love_Solidarity.  Love as justice is expressed in service and solidarity.  "One cannot love without serving."  Service without solidarity is not love.  "Justice is indispensable, because it is the first step to charity." (Pedro Arrupe, SJ)

BLESSED ARE THOSE

WHO DON'T GIVE UP ON LOVE - 

1   "Love bears all things, believe all things.  Love never fails." (1 Corinthians 13:7-8a) 

2   Jesus, who first loved us, has already paved the Way of unconditional love - the Way of the Cross.  We only need to grab his coattail - abide in him (John 15:4-10).  "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places ... I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also." (John 14:2-3)