As I'm sure a lot of you have read the 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, and that is a great book for understand how you and your spouse receive love and understand what you can to do love your spouse more authentically. However, there is more to love than just understanding your spouses's primary and secondary love language. It is one thing to understand the language, it is another thing to be fluent in it and go beyond. Jesus Christ teaches us that love ultimately requires sacrifice. To truly understand the power of love, we first have to look at the crucifix. That is the ultimate sign of what it means to love.
Jesus gave his disciples the greatest commandment at the last supper. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." ~ John 13: 34. How did Jesus Christ show us his love? He laid down his life for ours. He gave us everything he had to give to save us. The cross is the way of true love. Jesus knows every one of us intimately, our greatest joys and our worse sorrows. He embraced each one of us on the cross, and it was his blood that purified us. Jesus showed us the way, the truth, and the life and he embodied what it means to love. Thus love is more than just an emotion. Love is a choice and that choice is for the greatest good of another at the expense of yourself. It is in giving that we receive.
In order to love properly, you have to train yourself in selflessness. To do that means to sacrifice things you want to do for what is in the best interest for your beloved. It is training the mind, the body and the heart to be in a position to love in that sacrificial way that Jesus taught us. One cannot run a marathon overnight, and so it is with learning how to love. The best way to learn how to love is to spend time with love, and that means spending quality time in Adoration. It is there that Jesus Christ will penetrate your heart with his love and mercy. Old wounds may come up in adoration, and that is fine because Jesus is wanting to heal those wounds so you can stretch your heart's capacity to love. As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said, "Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey; but if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey? The vessel, that is your heart, must first be enlarged and then cleansed, freed from the vinegar and its taste. this requires hard work and is painful, but in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined." It is in adoration that your heart can be healed and where it will be stretched to be filled more with Jesus' love.
When your heart is full of the love of Christ, you share it with the world. You cannot give what you don't have, so my brothers and sisters in Christ, let your hearts be filled with the love of Jesus. A love so powerful that can transform your world and the world around you.
"The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist." ~ St. Gregory the Great.
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