Perfect love

Between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the joyful consummation is forever.  Their love, which was from before the foundation of the world, is now magnified by the homecoming of all the prodigal children adopted into their love.  Stumbling our way toward home, we worry about the unworthiness of our love, only to discover that it has already been attended to . . . 


To fret about the quality of our love is to miss the point.  Yes, we examine ourselves, confess our failings and pray for the grace to offer our best.  But it will never be good enough, unless with all its flaws it is handed over and taken up into his love for the Father.  Foolishly we rummage through what Yeats calls "the rag and bone shop" of our hearts to find a love that is pure, untouched by self-interest or pretense.  It is an endless and futile search, compounded by complexity the more rigorously it is pursued.  Among the things we give up, among the things we hand over, is that futile search. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus - Death on a Friday Afternoon


I'm now in the home stretch of this book, the last word of Jesus, the final chapter.  How interesting that my reading of this passage coincides with my desire to improve and purify how I love.  Has Fr. Neuhaus  carefully brought me to this point, or has another Author's hand been at work?

Unlike the usual worldly approach to this quest - and my own past ones - I'm not looking for someone I can love better.  (Isn't it sad how often we conclude, if we don't love another as we long to, it is because of a fault in the beloved?) While I'm not so sure I'm seeking anything so self-disinterested as Fr. Neuhaus describes, what I want is to love like I breathe.  Each inspiration of breath brings in the oxygen that saturates my cells with the fuel they need to carry out their function for the good of my body; each expiration carries away that which would poison them.  And when breathing becomes hard, I find a way to do it anyway.

I want my loving to be the same way, just as natural and life-giving and purifying, and just as determined when it needs to be. As much progress as I've made in choosing my beloveds' best interest, there's still too much selfishness in my love.  And while I'm pretty sure this is largely up to me to address, I suppose it is like our love for God: my love for those I love won't ever be good enough - that is, as abundant and pure as I long for it to be and, beyond that, all that God would have his love for them through me become - until I unite it with Christ's love for them, perfected in his commending himself fully into the Father's care.

This book keeps reminding me that focusing too much on myself and my efforts confounds my best intentions.  I must look to Christ.