By Fr Augustine Vallooran, VC –
New Year always follows immediately after the Christmas celebration. This perhaps is not such a coincidence. The two major events of the year have a definite vital spiritual connection. The Christmas message sets the tone for the life in the New Year ahead. As we step into a fresh year our hearts are warmed up for a spiritual awakening because of the Christmas celebration.
Christmas reveals to us how God deals with us and how we need to order our life. The mystery of Christmas is revealed to us in God’s infinite love that offered His own Son for our salvation. As Jesus Himself declares “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). It was this nature of the love of our God that was manifested in the manger.
Contemplating on this mystery St John defines God as love (I Jn 4:8). The evangelist continues to tell us that because God loves us we need to love each other. “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another” (I Jn 4:11). There seems to be a logical inconsistency here. St John does not say that because God loves us we must give that love back to God, rather being filled with that love of God we need to give that love to each other. Christmas is an assurance from God that His love flows into us to enable us to love everyone. This is the heart of Christian faith.
“When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away” (I Cor 13:10)
Humankind can be divided into two categories of people. The first group of individuals who goes about frantically shopping for love, trying to grab love from wherever it is available. Every action of theirs is fuelled with the expectation and calculation of rewards they must get as returns. The other group of people is willing to serve love wherever there is a need. The former group feels the dryness of love and finds the world around a desert. Never satisfied with what they get, they make life hard for everyone. The latter type makes life a celebration for all around them.
A woman shared with me her spiritual journey. When she made her retreat the first time she had only complaints and grievances to share. At the end of the retreat she told me, “Now I understand the reason for all the troubles of my life. I was not loved by my parents.” I told her it was a very negative way of ending a retreat. I explained that she needed to open her heart for God’s love to flow in to heal her. She explained to me how her father was an alcoholic and the mother was a very strict schoolteacher. She does not remember her father saying anything good to her or her mother showing any affection. She grew up without any happiness in her life. She married a businessman who had no time for her. Children were born and she could not show much affection to them.
In her desperation she had an affair with a neighbour who dumped her. She felt used by him. She would always find fault with the husband and she would deal with the children in a very indifferent manner. She concluded the sharing by saying “Life was so miserable for me all because my parents did not love me. I looked for love from husband, from my children and even outside of my family. I was let down and rejected by everyone. Mine has been a cursed existence.” I pointed out to her that God the Father has sent His own Son to the world to reveal to her how much he cares for her. I explained, “He has made sure that you would not perish in the wounds of your life. All you need to do is to believe in Him and place your wounds before the Lord, waiting for a healing in the fullness of His love. And then you will be so filled that you will be able serve love to the very people who hurt you.”
She made another retreat, this time she shifted her attention on the wounds of the Lord. She recognized how He opened His heart to receive her wounds because He loved her. She realised that Jesus offered Himself to be wounded because of His love for her. The word of God came alive to her that she was precious and dear to Him. Her whole life vision changed that she went back to her parents, husband and children to care for them in love. The more she did everything with love, the more she was healed and filled.
Later when she came for another retreat she was sharing with me how amazed she was to note the change in her heart and in attitudes and behaviour patterns. When she was with her family members it was no longer a compulsion to get their attention that urged her to do anything for them. Rather there was a lot of joy in her to care for their needs. When she was busy going about the humdrum duties of the household she felt a lot of love in her heart because she knew she was doing everything for the family she loved. She had no complaint anymore about going unnoticed or unappreciated for what she did. She began to see a lot of good in her husband and children and she could appreciate what they meant for her.
Later she joined a pious association in her parish. This was an association of mothers who gathered every month to pray together. They were also reaching out to other mothers who had problems in the family life. She found time to talk to them and to lead them in prayer. She shared with me that when she had love in the heart there were many she could help. Earlier she was burdened with the incessant thirst to grab love and appreciation but now she was free and empowered to give love.
“I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (Jn 13:15)
The nature of love indeed is to be able to give. When God loved infinitely He could give Himself, His own Son for the salvation of the humankind. To be Christian requires one to be like God in life. In our own limited way we will be able to make the world a paradise of love.
In our own times the great icon of love is Mother Teresa. She exhorted everyone to love and give until it hurts. She described in awe, “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” That’s when we touch upon the nature of God.
In the first book of Kings Chapter 17, God sends the prophet Elijah to a certain widow in Zarephath. There was a long drought in the land. All the brooks were dried, the fields were barren and consequently there was no water or food anywhere. God asked Elijah to walk forward and approach a widow who he saw collecting sticks. He asked her for water to drink. While she was heading to get that for him, he asked her again for some bread to eat. In distress she said to him that all she had was a handful of dough in a jar and a little oil in the jug. In a desperate tone she said to him that her intention was to bake bread with the little she had that she may give to her son and eat some of it herself and then wait to die. While encouraging her to go ahead with her plan, Elijah however insisted that first she bakes the bread for him. The widow was not put off by this absurd request. She did as the prophet said. She gave until it hurt. But that giving brought her abundance. The jar was never emptied of flour and her jug was ever filled with oil until the drought passed.
God blesses a cheerful giver, a giver that does not count the cost or weigh the consequences. Such giving shares in the nature of God.
“Those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (I Jn 4:16)
Some years ago a man came for retreat. He was in terrible anger and distress. He had an elder brother who was making life impossible for him. The father had partitioned the property in a fair manner, giving the ancestral house to the younger son. When the father expired the elder son was terribly agitated about this and raised a hue and cry that there was something unjust and even suspicious about the entire matter. He went to court challenging the father’s will. When it was clear that his case was not valid, he would always try to pick a quarrel with the younger brother and tried in every way to spoil his reputation.
On one occasion he even tried to block the marriage of the younger brother’s daughter. The younger brother ended his sharing by saying, “My heart is so filled with hurts. There are too many painful memories that I cannot forget.” I told him that as long as he decided to cling on to these memories he would suffer and be a very unhappy man. He needs to deliver himself of this burden by giving every such hurtful memory to the Lord. Only then he would be able to love his brother. As a first step I told him to pray for his brother that God may bless him and wait upon God to console him and anoint him with the Holy Spirit who is the power of forgiving love.
During the Eucharistic adoration he had an overwhelming experience of God that transformed his heart. In a vision he saw the crucified Lord asking him to forgive every hurt. After the retreat he went to his brother and told him that he could have the ancestral house and he would get it documented in his name. The brother was sceptical but took the offer. He came again for the retreat to get the power of the Lord to continue to love his brother. He said the brother had two houses while he had to take a rented house to live in. The giving hurt him very much and yet he felt the giving was worth the pain. In the beginning every smile he gave to his brother cost him but in prayer he felt the love flowing into his heart and healing him.
A couple of months later something amazing happened. He had two sons who were graduates in engineering. They had applied for a work visa to go to the US. For a long time there was no breakthrough. Now they both got offers for jobs in the US. In two years time he could build his own house. His elder brother helped him generously with the construction of the house. He testified to me that in his spiritual transformation he got his own new house and his brother and above all his God.
The mystery of Christmas charts out the path to tread rest of the New Year. Christmas opens our hearts to love everyone to the very extent of giving ourselves without measure. We make the nature of God the ideal of our love. That’s when a New Year becomes a spiritual and blessed experience. In a world that is being broken down by narrow divisions, and indifference and hatred to the other has become the rule of the day, we the disciples of the Lord Jesus who was born in a manger have a crucial and defining role to play. The great love revealed on Christmas Day should become our way of living.
Prayer
Thank you Lord for opening your heart to us and pouring out your love. We are privileged to get the revelation of your nature that you are love by definition. We have failed to love others and reveal your glory to them. In a world that is getting drained of love and human compassion, let rivers of love flow from your heart and flood this world transforming this desert into a haven of love. Let the world know you as the life-giving love. Let the New Year be a time of determination for us to be men and women of love and compassion. Amen.
Dr Augustine Vallooran VC is Director Divine Retreat Centre (English and other Languages), Muringoor, Chalakudy Kerala
(Thankful to Divine Voice Magazine for allowing us to use this article.)