IT'S THE SMALL THINGS

Although I always make it a point to listen to homilies, sermons and the preaching of revered individuals, it is very seldom that one resonates so deeply with me. I do not know if it was the timing — the words I needed to hear on that day — or the delivery, but the homily I heard last weekend was one that will keep coming back to me for a very long time, and needless to say, one that I will continuously look back on in the years to come. In a gist, the priest said, “Jesus died for us, and that is a most selfless love.” Almost, he continued to explain, a kind of love none of us sinners are truly capable of ever emulating. This love has evolved in how we carry it out in our everyday lives. Whether it is to a spouse, a partner, our children, friends, family, colleagues, our community — we practice love in our everyday lives through gestures big and small, consciously and unconsciously to those we care most about. But, ultimately, love is almost always a choice. We choose who to share it with and give it to, in the same way that we decide who to hold back, and protect ourselves from. And because love is a choice, we inevitably give those we love deeply (and the most), the opportunity to hurt us the greatest as well. Choosing to forgive is where the act and practice of selflessness and being a true Christian lies, he emphasized. So why then should we bother to risk getting hurt? In the end, although the probability of getting hurt at some point is quite significant, it is better to love, than to avoid being hurt. I truly believe in this whether it is friendship, parental love, the romantic kind, the list goes on. Not only is loving others character forming, it brings us back to our very core, and allows us to experience euphoric feelings in good times, as well as the saddest of sorrows during trying ones. Love encompasses all emotions, and I personally believe that if we have ever loved, then we have too have never truly lived. It is only in, and through love, after all, that we learn the truest meaning of empathy and compassion. It is only love that is capable of opening our hearts and minds to a new level of understanding and compromise. Only because and in the name of those we truly love do boundaries get blurred, and do we find it in ourselves to remain kind, and even turn a blind eye despite tough times. It is with, in, and through love that we truly get to know ourselves. And in the end, it is better to love and get hurt, than to have never loved at all. After all, may we never forget that “We love because He first loved us.” John 4:19.