Love Alone Fulfills Us

St. Pope John Paul the Great once said, “Man can only find himself in a sincere gift of himself.” He is echoing Jesus’ connection between love and joy. Christ tells us that if we wish to have joy, complete joy, it comes from loving one another to the point of sacrifice.

Let’s backtrack all the way to the beginning…of the human race. In Genesis, God looks at all He has made and says it is good. The sun, the rocks, the trees, the animals – all is good. Then He creates man – it is very good. But something is wrong – He says it is “not good” that man is alone. That is more than just loneliness, as painful as that is. Rather, Adam is missing a part of himself.

John Paul II says in his “Theology of the Body” that love is self-gift. Adam, alone in the garden, wanted to make a gift of himself to someone. He wanted to share his thoughts, his heart, his future. He wanted to lay down his life for union with someone…but there was no one who was a proper recipient of the gift. He couldn’t share his thoughts with a dog or a cat; he couldn’t have a true relationship with a tree. Despite what you may read on bumper stickers, a dog is not your relative or your child – they cannot receive and return a self-gift. Adam was incomplete – he had a desire to make himself a gift, but could not find a recipient.

Only when Eve was created did he find what he was made for. She alone had the dignity to receive his self-gift, and could return that self-gift. That is why God says He is creating an “ezer kenegdo” for Adam – we often translate that Hebrew phrase as “helper” but that’s pitifully insufficient. Ezer Kenegdo means “life-saver” – it is only in having a person to love that Adam realizes who he is and what he’s made for. Otherwise, he’s lost!

 Hence, the connection between love and joy. When we love, we complete ourselves because that is what we were made for. But this love is not an emotion, but willing the good of the other. This often requires sacrifice. But as St. Mother Teresa said, “I have found the paradox: when I love until it hurts, there is no more hurt, only more love.” A profound truth – when we have sacrificed our life for another, only then do we find what it means to truly live.

The saints knew this intimately. St. Therese of Lisieux was a nineteenth-century cloistered Carmelite nun with an identity problem. She felt restless, unsettled. She wanted to be a priest, but being a woman, that was impossible. She wanted to be a missionary, but her health prevented that. So she continued to wrestle within herself, asking herself, “What is my vocation?”

Finally one day in prayer she was led to open St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. She read there that the Body of Christ has different members, and that the hand cannot be the foot. But still she said, “But what is my calling?” She read further, and St. Paul writes that “I will show you a still more excellent way…love is patient, love is kind, love never fails.” She closed the Bible and remarked with joy, “I have finally found my vocation! My call is to love.”

And then she set about living it out. Every day, she would find ways to sacrifice and serve. Respond with a smile when another nun intentionally splashed dirty dish water on her. Seek to spend time with the sister who was not well-liked. Patiently endure the failings of others, without speaking badly of them. It was not easy – one time it cost her so much to smile patiently at someone that she said she was “bathed in perspiration”. But her life’s purpose was to love – no matter the cost – and it brought her great joy…and holiness.

So are you depressed? Lonely? Anxious? Restless, searching for “more” in life? Many times this comes from us being overly concerned about ourselves – our problems, our worries, our crosses. As they say, a man wrapped up in himself makes a pretty small package.

So what is the antidote? Love is the answer. Go and bake cookies for your neighbor. Write a thank-you note to someone. Pick up the phone and call the lonely relative. Spend time loving Jesus in prayer, no matter the cost. Get out and sacrifice for someone else – and you will be surprised how much joy you will find.

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Originally published at The Cross Stands While the World Turns

Photo: Pexels / PD-US