LOVE ‘EM ALL
Memorial of St. Pius X, Pope
My dear encountered couples:
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? We can forget everything else in the bible and just love everybody. Ever notice how so many things can look and seem so easy - until you try it yourself? Watch an Olympic or professional ice skater. She just glides around on the ice like she was born there. All sorts of turns and figures in rhythm to music are done with such smoothness that we are carried away in sort of an ecstasy. Then you try to do the same thing and you practically end up in the hospital.
It is the same with love. It sounds so easy. When put to music it captures us and carries us away on the winds of dreams. Then someone says something disagreeable to us and those winds are quickly replaced by a lightning flash of anger. To love when everything is going well can be easy. To love when we feel disturbed or tired is a real trial.
Jesus is telling us we must learn to love God, our neighbors and ourselves all the time -whether we feel like it or not. “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbor as yourself.”
The figure skater fell many times before acquiring the smoothness of a gazelle. You and I will fumble in our efforts of loving others thousands of times before its quality becomes second nature. To accept the challenge of becoming a loving person is to take on the most difficult job in existence. But we must do it if we wish to ever achieve fulfillment and happiness.
Practice each day, especially on your bad days when you don’t feel like it. Let Jesus help you graduate from his school of hard knocks and love.
