And then my mind went wandering:
How many stories point to the difficulty of love's necessary response? The story line goes as the following: The protagonist in pursuit of happiness professes his/her love to the assumed love of their life, "I love you!" Only to find awkward silence or at best, "Well that's nice" or "Well I really I like you." The audience, including myself, begin to squirm and their hearts go out to the protagonist. Why? We desire, we long for love to conquer. We want the happy ending: "I Love You Too!" (Note - this longing for love to conquer points to our own disposition and desire to love and be loved)
Then I began to reflect over all my friends who were recently engaged. What is the first question you ask? Of course it's how did he propose? Were there tears? I always imagine...The man takes the knee, professes his enduring love to the woman and with a dramatic pause the woman says... It's breath-taking, yet also nerve wrecking! Two lives will either radically come together, or separate.
I believe we love these stories because we desire to enter into the story of love, but see how we are called to respond to it. It's not the proposal that's so great! It's the YES to the Proposal that makes our hearts jump!
Now back to Hans Urs von Balthasar's point: Love requires our response. What is it that our faith proclaims? If we don't acknowledge God's love for us, how can we respond to it? If we struggle to connect an event that happened 2,000 years ago from today, we will continue struggle with our own problems and look for answers that are not found in Christ.
This is where understanding our faith is so important. It is important to understand who Jesus Christ is: a Divine person that is fully human and fully divine! Not only do we have God who expands through all time and eternity, but we have a God who became flesh to reveal His love to all humanity through his death on the Cross. This moment, this event, is not an event or moment that fades away. Actually the Power of the Cross remains for all eternity!
Our Lord has truly loved us and continues to love us! He has revealed the extent of his love on the Cross and now it is our turn to respond. And what will our response be? Will we sit an awkward silence, will we say "well that's nice" or even "well I really like you." All is to insufficient... we need to make a complete surrender and yell it, "I LOVE YOU too!" Let's enter into Love's Story, Let's respond to God's Love!
St. Augustine - “To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.”
In His Service
Michael Kearney
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