Topic: Love

If we are not willing to love when it is difficult, or inconvenient, or when it requires us to show charity to those we do not particularly like (perhaps even to love our enemies!) then we have not love at all, and our relationships will suffer as a result. The evidence is of course abundant in the breakdown of marriage and the family, but the same is true of our relationship with God - we face similar temptations to reduce it down to a feeling or a transaction.

Christ’s example of willing obedience, as extolled here in the hymn of Christ - is the ultimate demonstration of God’s divine love. True love cannot be separated from the freedom of our will.

God’s justice is perfect and His generosity inexhaustible. If God’s justice and mercy do not align with our own limited understanding, therefore, then we should challenge ourselves to think differently. In so doing, may God increase our trust in Him, even when we do not understand His ways; increase our love of heavenly things; and increase the joy of our salvation in Jesus Christ.

We might say our love is genuine. We know what Paul means, and we know it sounds good. But our love is not free of pretense. Our “genuine love” is a lot more like “genuine leather” than the standard to which Paul exhorts us. We want to have the appearance and the benefits of authentic love without any of the responsibilities and discomforts it puts upon us.

What are you most passionate about? If someone were to ask you about yourself, with what would you identify? Would it be the Church of Jesus Christ? Or is it some other organization or identity group which lays claim to your passions and desires? Everyone we meet falls into one of two categories - with Christ, or without Christ. May God fan that flame to burn within our hearts and stir us on to love our neighbor by sharing the Gospel!

Jesus told his disciples, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). The Rev. Galloway challenges us to examine how far we fall short of this commandment and reminds us that love does not mean saying things people want to hear – it means telling the truth.

Our innermost desire is to be fully known and yet fully loved, and that can only be satisfied by the eternal love of God. No one can know you more fully, and love you more perfectly, than God can. You are not a creature of your own self-definition; rather, you are a being made in the perfect image of God, and therefore deserving of dignity from conception to final breath. Watch as the Rector celebrates the glory of Christ’s Resurrection.

Much has been said about the parable of the prodigal son, but the end of so many who teach this passage is to read themselves into the text and ask “which son are you?” While there is nothing inherently bad about this type of reading, the point of the passage goes much deeper than that. The Rector explains how this parable challenges us to be better ambassadors for Christ.

Christian marriage, for all its human imperfections, is the greatest representation of God’s love and joy for His people, lived out through Christ and His Church, and celebrated both temporally and eternally in the Holy Eucharist.