Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “Love is always patient and kind; love is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited, it is never rude and never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offence or store up grievances. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds its joy in the truth. It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. Love never comes to an end” (1Cor 13, 4).
This passage of the Letter to St Paul to the Corinthians, part of the famous Hymn to Charity, refers directly to the Person of Jesus Christ who came on earth to teach us how to love God and neighbour. Everything Christ did, which culminated in his death on the Cross and his Resurrection, was to teach mankind, whom He redeemed, sincere and total obedience to the new commandment: “love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 13, 34).
The commandment of love is the essence of the Christian faith which, only thus, finds the authenticity and power necessary to move mountains, especially those built by our selfishness, our self love. Saint Catherine of Sienna calls it the “the cloud that dulls the eye of the soul” (Lett. 350), “the dust which blinds the eye of the intellect” (Lett. 76, D. r. 449, p. 71). Precisely in love of self the holy Dominican woman sees the root of all evil, similar to a parasite which corrodes everything.
All the saints personally experienced the power of the words of the Gospel which impose a real and radical conversion, an essential condition for accepting the Kingdom of God in the Person of Jesus. John the Baptist announced clearly “he must grow greater, I must grow less” (Jn 3, 30). We often deceive ourselves to the contrary and try to unite love's two opposite poles: disinterested and freely given love called charity and self love produced by ourselves called precisely amor proprio. It is not always easy to distinguish between the two, but the Hymn to Charity helps us to do so! The first, Christian love “ never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offence or store up grievances. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing … it endures whatever comes”, the second, self interest, does exactly the opposite: “seeks its own advantage, is concerned only about self, returns evil with evil and accepts only self and others if this is convenient ”.
The Lord wishes to re-create our hearts, “I will give you a new heart”, he wishes to renew our spirit, “I will give you a new spirit”, because without love we cannot rise up to Heaven, we cannot reach that beatitude promised already here on earth. Jesus promised it to all those who are “poor in self love”, who put off amor proprio and put on the white garments of divine love.
Benedict XVI, in his homily on Holy Thursday 2007, referring to the passage in the Book of Revelation on the 144,000 chosen ones who had washed their garments in the blood of the Lamb (cfr Rev 7,14), confided: “When I was little, I used to ask myself about this: when one washes something in blood, it certainly does not become white! The answer is: the "Blood of the Lamb" is the love of the Crucified Christ. It is this love that makes our dirty clothes white, that makes our clouded spirit true and bright; that transforms us, despite all our shadows, into "light in the Lord". ” (Benedict XVI, homily during the Chrism Mass, 5 April 2007).
In this context of light and shadow, charity and selfishness, in which we find ourselves, there exists a spiritual battle which we cannot avoid: “God, or self”! The role which Divine Providence assigned to the Blessed Virgin Mary with regard to us, the redeemed people, was unique. In God's pedagogical teaching Our Lady moves in extraordinary harmony with her Son Jesus to bring back that which had been lost because of love of self, to the house of the Father where divine charity reigns and we find again true way of loving.
Ninety years ago in Fatima three shepherd children, intent on their games and their sheep, encountered Our Lady and learned to forget themselves and look at others, the world, history, from God's own viewpoint. Responding without hesitation to Our Lady's request to “offer themselves to the Lord” for the salvation of sinners, they discovered the new heart of the beatitudes. God's love invaded their life, chasing all clouds from their hearts and brushing all dust from their souls, rendering them for humanity bright starts which continue to shine today reminding us that true love dispels all fear and leads us out of the cage of self love. (Agenzia Fides 18/7/2007; righe 51, parole 764)
