- JPII quote of love sincere gift of self
4 Types of Love: family (familial), philia (friends), eros (passion), and agape.
Agape give to another more needy. Generous self-donation without concern for reward.[1]
- Christmas, the season of Christ the True Gift
Our journey back to God as a new man in Christ crucified, buried, and risen. Healed and re-created by the God-Man. (St. Gregory of Nazianzus)[2]
Wake up, O human being! For it was for you that God was made man. Rise up and realize it was all for you. Eternal death would have awaited you had He not been born in time. Never would you be freed from your sinful flesh had He not taken to Himself the likeness of sinful flesh. Everlasting would be your misery had He not performed this act of mercy. You would not have come to life again had He not come to die your death. You would have perished had He not come. – St. Augustine[3]
4th century personal love for each man. Jesus loves in the particular. Church tells us clearly. JC died for us to restore us. Reveal true nature of ourselves to ourselves.
Self-donative love for every individual for all moments and all spaces.
Christ goes into sanctuary one time restore to love to God
- “This is how the love of God is shown among us.” The reason why the writer exhorts us, is so that we may come to love God. Could we love him, unless he first loved us? Though we were slow to love, let us not be slow to love in return. He loved us first. We do not even love in the same way as he. He loved the unrighteous, but he took away the unrighteousness. He loved the sick, but he visited them to make them whole. Love, then, is God. “This is how the love of God is shown among us: God sent his only Son into the world, that we may live through him.” As the Lord himself said: “No one can have greater love than this: to lay his down his life for his friends.” [John 25:13] This proved Christ’s love for us, the fact that he died for us. How is the Father’s love for us proved? By the fact that he sent his only Son to die for us. As the apostle Paul says, “He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not freely give us all things?”
Christ is and can only be restorative. Shadow of God, God loves you as you are. Some small element of truth and thus believable. Paltry God, loves and restores us to goodness.
Prodigal father, son came back in state of destitution. Father did not leave him there. Could have said I love and clean up cow dung. Father love restorative love, bring back into authentic sonship.
Do harm to the lost people, short shrift them what God intends. What they have is enough. Against the generosity of God.
Jesus loved the sick and healed/ restored them.
[1] Peter M. J. Stravinskas Ph. D., S.T.L. Ed Catholic Encyclopedia (Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington, IN 1991)604
[2] https://aleteia.org/2017/12/25/5-quotes-from-the-church-fathers-on-the-beauty-of-christmas accessed November 8, 2024
[3] https://aleteia.org/2017/12/25/5-quotes-from-the-church-fathers-on-the-beauty-of-christmas accessed November 8, 2024