God’s love is not the love of TV soap operas

Christian love always has the distinctive mark of being “concrete.” It is therefore a love that “consists more in deeds than in words,” one that lies “more in giving than in receiving.”

This is what Pope Francis reaffirmed on Thursday morning during the homily of the Mass he celebrated in the chapel of the Saint Martha residence.

No sentimental romanticism: either it is a selfless and benevolent love that rolls up its sleeves and cares for the poor, preferring to give rather than to receive, or it has nothing to do with Christian love. Pope Francis is clear and firm on the matter and develops his reflection starting from the first letter of John, where the apostle insistently repeats: “If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is perfected in us.” The experience of faith, the Pope stressed, lies precisely in this “double dwelling”:

“We in God and God in us: this is the Christian life. Not remaining in the spirit of the world, not remaining in superficiality, in idolatry, in vanity. No, we must remain in the Lord. And he repays us in kind: he remains in us. Often we drive him out of our lives and cannot remain in him.”

Remaining in the love of God

Having clarified the dynamic of the spirit that moves Christian love, Pope Francis went on to examine its substance. To “remain in the love” of God, he said, is not so much an ecstasy of the heart:

“Know that the love John speaks of is not the love of the television soap operas! No, it is something entirely different. Christian love always has one quality: its concreteness. Christian love is concrete. Jesus himself, when he speaks of love, speaks to us of concrete things: feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, and so many concrete things. Love is concrete. And when this concreteness is missing, one lives a Christianity of illusions, because one does not truly grasp where the center of Jesus’ message lies.

This love fails to be concrete: it is an illusory love, like those illusions the disciples had when, looking at Jesus, they thought he was a ghost.”

A hardened heart cannot love

The “ghost” is the one whom the disciples, in today’s Gospel passage, behold in wonder and fear as he comes toward them walking on the sea. But their astonishment comes from the hardness of their hearts, because “they had not understood,” the Gospel tells us, the multiplication of the loaves that had taken place a short time before. “If your heart is hardened,” Pope Francis added, “you cannot love and you think that love is imagining things. No, love is concrete.” And this concreteness rests on two criteria:

“First criterion: to love through deeds, not with words. Words are carried off by the wind! Today they are here, tomorrow they have vanished. The second criterion of concreteness: in love it is more important to give than to receive. The one who loves gives, gives… He gives things, life; he gives himself to God and to others. On the other hand, the one who does not love, who is selfish, always seeks to receive, to obtain things, advantages. To keep our hearts open, not like the disciples whose hearts were closed and who understood nothing: to remain in God, and there God remains in us; to remain in love.”

Source: News.va