How do we show love?
Our faith in God reminds us we are to do something with our lives. Jesus did not remain idle; even when He rested He was always pouring Himself out for the people in some way. He was always available and ready to show compassion.
This begs the question: How do we show love?
Since love is not merely sentiment or emotion (it involves a conscious act of willing the good of the other, CCC 1766), to show it, we must act in particular ways.
Which means In order to know how to love, we look to Jesus, the “… image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15).
How does Jesus show love?
Since we are rational beings made up of both a body and soul (CCC 365), we not only experience physical hunger for bodily sustenance, we all possess a spiritual hunger that many of us cannot identify.
This spiritual hunger, if not recognized, abhors a void.
Like our stomachs, it has to be filled with something. If we are not filling it with Christ, self-indulgence in every form fills the place (Gal 5:18).
God is infinite; He is outside of time and space. But in His great love for us, His very Presence goes with us in various ways:
One way is through His one Sacrifice made present to us today in the Mass: His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. It is the concrete physical way He stays with us.
Jesus also stays with us in the words of Sacred Scripture because He is the “Word” (John 1:1).
Because He is always present (through divine omnipresence), Jesus also makes Himself available to His rational creatures (through the Holy Spirit) when we reach out to Him in our prayers.
He guards us and guides us through His loving Providence, working good from all evil (Rom 8:28) that befalls us.
He provides us with a conscience, the tool we are all given to help us reach out to Him.
He gives us families to love and lives of the unlovable, as opportunities to recognize Him and love Him in return.
Finally, He loves us through His Bride–the “lampstand” of the world–His Church (St. Maximus the Confessor). Her teachings are not subject to decay because they are inlaid with wisdom beyond our grasp.
St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662 AD) wrote,
“Therefore, let us not put the lamp (that is the enlightening word of knowledge) which we have lit by spiritual contemplation and action under a bushel. Let us not be guilty of restricting the incomprehensible force of wisdom by the letter. Let us put it on the lamp-stand (by that I mean the Church), where on the heights of true contemplation it may hold out the light of divine teaching to all men.”
How can we repay Him?
The short answer is we cannot possibly repay Jesus.
But we can love Him.
We can clean up our own lives by going to the Source of all love.
By reading Sacred Scripture, by finding a quiet spot to sit with Him, by visiting Him in the Blessed Sacrament, by loving our family and praying for our enemies, by staying close to Him in the Sacraments of His Church, and by thanking Him for all He’s done for each one of us.
Taking action in these ways show love for Him, by crucifying all our self-indulgent passions and desires (Gal 5:24).
True love never makes demands, but desires to give of itself freely, expecting nothing in return.
Love and infinity
Love makes us yearn for the infinite; the finite will never satisfy us. We desire the infinite because we have immortal souls inside us–the part of us that will never die.
See how He loves us?
“You hold my right hand” (Ps 73:23, JB).
Sources: Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed., http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a5.htm, http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/365.htm, St. Maximus the Confessor, Divine Office Breviary, Liturgy of the Hours, October 12, 2022, https://www.universalis.com/-400/today.htm.