It is a profound relationship that touches every dimension of the person: the heart, the affections, the emotions, the plans and the will, not only in their inward reality but in their outward expression in concrete action.
True love admits no fundamental contradictions. To grow in love is to move toward the gradual, increasingly integral harmonization of all aspects of human life. This is how the Son of God, clothed in flesh, experienced his divinity. And it is how we are called to experience him as well.
The Joy Hidden in Sacrifice
Love's very nature involves sacrifice and the cross, the fire of purification. Yet at the bottom of the soul, it brings an immense joy that is also its eternal horizon.
Keeping the commandments means abiding in the love of Jesus, in the giving of life. In keeping them, Jesus expresses his devotion to the Father and becomes a gift to men. To give is to sacrifice, to die, but also to rejoice. "Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed..." It is an ongoing process: a constant dying and, simultaneously, a constant awakening to the joy of new life.
It is the joy of a mother who, though weakened by pain, rejoices that a new person has come into the world. Jesus spoke these words so that, even amid our crosses, his joy may dwell in us, take root in us and therefore be complete.
To abide by the commandments in this way is to “keep” them as Jesus kept the Father’s commandments: his “nourishment” was to do the Father’s will. It was a desire that consumed him like a blaze of love. For us, too, it is a painfully purifying process, burning away the forms of egoism that are as incompatible with love as water is with fire.
The fruit, however, is joy. A joy so complete that it reaches the whole person and all areas of life, even those that normally cloud joy or give rise to anger or disappointment.
When Nothing Is Left to Wound
Where the self has been emptied out, there is nothing left that can be wounded. In us, however, so much remains vulnerable. There is much to purify and burn away, driven by the desire to do the Father’s will, so that his life may dwell within us.
By living the commandments, Jesus lived out his divinity in human form. Nothing, therefore, could be more divine. The harmony between outward action and inner life is the condition of a healthy spirituality: “Abide in my love!”
This text was originally published on DoKostola.sk, a Slovak Catholic website.
Marián Gavenda is a Slovak Roman Catholic priest, author, journalist and translator, and a former spokesman for the Slovak Bishops’ Conference.
