Only Love Recognizes Love

(This is a Gospel Reflection on John 3:13-17)

Every time I face the mirror with my religious habit (cassock) on, I see two realities of my person: a person so weak and many times have fallen short of loving God but also a person so loved and always being raised up by the mercy of God.

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

So, whenever I see the “exalted” Crucifix in Churches, what do I see? Why is it raised? What is yet to be seen with the image of the Crucified Lord?

I learned from the Catechism that Jesus died for the sins of the world, mine included.

Hence, there had been some moments in my life that whenever I gazed upon the Crucified Lord I would always be drawn into sorrow and remorse for my sins. And rightly so. And rightly so.

When I was still a novice, I read our founder’s words written in 1857, that future MSCs “will learn far more at the foot of the cross than in books.” Thenceforth, the question that I was trying to answer was, WHY?

I always believed that Fr. Jules was a man of deep prayer and whatever he wrote was the fruit of such deep encounter with the Heart of God. And it led me into really asking the Lord what was the truth behind such words.

The answer came with the insight: ONLY A LOVER RECOGNIZES LOVE.

Oftentimes, I stopped at being remorseful, sad, feeling guilty with the death that I see on the Cross. It was not bad. But the tendency of which was to be overwhelmed by emotions rather than be transformed by the Love that has laid Himself for the sake of the beloved.

The Gospel reading today, the first ever Bible Verse that I memorized, says it well, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

The Exaltation of God’s only Son upon the Cross is the ultimate expression of God’s love for all. He calls me to go beyond sympathy, beyond the pain, the sorrow, and the remorse for my sinfulness.

Going beyond the pain, the sorrow, and the remorse for my sinfulness does not mean the rejection of the Cross, that I become an arrogant and forgetful of my weakness… but by calling me beyond these, God is drawing me into the real meaning of His Son’s greatest AMEN on the Cross and that is LOVE, to which the pain, the sorrow, and the remorse for my sinfulness should lead me. Only by letting myself be drawn into LOVE will I become a LOVER.

And only by being a Lover will I always see that the Cross is the meeting point of my sinfulness and of God’s mercy and love.

Only a Lover recognizes Love.