Discussion thought of the Day..

 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. 10 This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven. 11 Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another.1 John 4:7-11 (TEV)

“A disciple of Christ can never think as follows: “I try to be good; as for others, if that’s what they want… let them go to hell.” Such an attitude is not human. Nor is it in keeping with the love of God, or with the charity we owe our neighbour.”  (1)

This Lent the theme of most of our readings continues to be reconciliation among the people God has created.  We have seen God’s heart – that he will not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, that He only wants them to come home, as the prodigal did. 

When will our heart break for those who walk without Christ?  I am not talking about the kind of guilt caused by a spiritual version of those programs that show starving children, seeking to get us to send wads of money to appease our shame, to give us the feeling that we helped a little, therefore it is alright to go back to living life.  I ask the question again, when will our hearts truly break for those that do not know the mercy of Christ, or the peace of God our Father.

When will we love them, as He loves them?

It has to come down to whether we see ourselves as His family, that our neighbor, even the one we struggle with, as someone as close to us as family.  It is because… they are.  Christ died not just for us – our faith is not an individual faith, Jesus is a personaly savior – He died to reconcile us all to Him, and therefore to each other.  We aren’t really talking aboout ng strangers, but our own people, our own family.  And that takes patience, and love… time.

So look on those who do not know the love of Christ, and love them and be patient with them, until their journey brings them home as well.

(1)  Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 3358-3361). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.