Written for ACTS (Action, Charity, Testimony, and Sactification) group of Nanyang Technological University's Catholic Students' Apostolate (NTUCSA) when I worked in the ministry. (Gosh! It was five years ago!!! I'm old!!!)
Wed 13 Feb 2002 – 6th
Valentine’s Day Specials
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Dear Leaders,
I was going to work in MRT when I saw the headline of STREATS today. Net dating services boom as desperate singles go online, ‘Love in the Time of Computers’. Arrived in City Hall, I took one paper. Inside, I found lots of articles about LOVE. Well, not just articles, but also
lots of advertisement like heart-shaped pizza from Pizza Hut, ‘love at first bite… and every bite’. I walked pass lots of stores with ‘love’ written all over them.
Valentine’s Day. A day to celebrate love?
Love songs played everywhere. Couples go out for dinner, movie, or a stroll in the park… Then roses are sold three or four times the usual price, maybe more. Bears are snatched out of stores. Chocolate too, I suppose. People send cards, e-card, e-message, sms, etc… Valentine’s Day, the day when love is in the air!
Hmm, you can find the word ‘LOVE’ written all over the bible too. Maybe not so much in the Old Testament, but after Jesus came in, you can find that word pretty often. In fact, it is the main thing that He taught us. Wait a minute, Jesus? Teaching us on ‘love’? So in a way, He taught the very basic element of this Valentine’s Day!!! Cool, huh? That’s why I wanted to talk about Him today, the cool guy who taught us how to love.
Girls, imagine this. Jesus is standing in front of your door, knocking. He is holding a pack of heart-shaped chocolate and a bunch of roses. When you open the door, He smiles sweetly and gave you those things, “Happy Valentine’s Day!!!” He said cheerfully. What will you do?
Don’t you think He celebrates Valentine’s Day too?
Tomorrow is Ash Friday, Jesus will start His journey to His death and resurrection. This journey to His death is His chocolate and His blood is the bunch of roses. As any normal guy would gives something to his Valentine, Jesus too, gives something as the symbol of His love.
He gives Himself.
Hey, hey wait a minute. Is that the same kind of love? The ‘love’ that Jesus had and the ‘love’ that we celebrated today?
What do you think?
Take your time to think and you can continue reading the 2nd email.
:) Vera
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Guys, it's a bit loooooong, if you don't have time to read it, save it for later. K? :P
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Well, it SHOULD have been the same kind ‘love’. But somehow the meaning of the ‘love’ itself has been distorted.
Jesus Version: Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs…
What is happening now: Johnny was late picking up Sally for a dinner, Sally who has waited for 30 minutes scolded him furiously and refused to go. Johnny tried to explain that he had to take his sister to his grandmother’s house before he could go to Sally’s. “So your sister is more important that me, ya?” Sally got jealous, “I don’t want to go, just ask your sister for dinner!!!” Weeks after that, Sally still mentioned that incident when she got angry with Johnny.
It’s not only happened between couples, mind you, but also in our relationship with friends, very good friends, neighbors, siblings, lecturers, toilet-cleaners… basically anyone that we come into contact with. Our love is no longer the same as Jesus’, it has turned impatient, not kind at all, jealous, proud, ill mannered, … selfish! And sadly, we celebrated that kind of love today.
Maybe we didn’t realize this, but the world is teaching us how to love too… and what it taught is not the same love as what Jesus taught us two thousands years ago. See all those romantic movies and listen to those love songs… what message do you get from them?
>snip< "I love you more than I love anyone." Translation: I'm more attracted to you than to others. How's that? You attract me more than others. You fit better into my mind's program than other people. That's not very flattering for you, but if my program were different... My tots: We are programmed in such a way by our parents, society, surroundings, and when we grow up, that programmed mind gets easily attracted by things that fit into it. I am reminded of people who say, "What does he find in her? Or what does he see in her?" Attraction is blind! My tots: Other people have different programs in their mind, thus, different people will have a different point of view of someone. When you get attracted to that someone, doesn't mean that others will agree with you that the someone is indeed attractive. >snip< --->Love is not attraction!
Have you ever get jealous and call it a feeling of love, or maybe faithfulness that you demanded from the other person? Sometimes we really demand a lot from the people we love and we are afraid of losing what we have, like friendship, our loved ones, our pet, things that we posses…
---> Well, faithfulness is not feelings of possession, jealousy, or fear of loss! Jesus told us loud and clear, love is not jealous.
The reading below was taken from Anthony de Mello’s Walking on Water. I hope it gave a clearer understanding to differentiate love that goes around in this world now and the love that Jesus talked about.
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Do you feel attracted by someone or something? When you give in to the attraction, gratification follows. And after gratification, weariness or anxiety: "I hope I can keep this up! I hope someone else doesn't move in!" Feelings of possession, jealousy, fear of loss. That's NOT love!
Love isn't dependence. It is very good to depend on people. If we didn't depend on one another, we wouldn't have society. Interdependence! We depend on the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the pilot, the taxi driver, all kinds of people. But depending on one another to be happy, that's what's bad.
Sometimes we see two empty people depending on one another, two incomplete persons propping each other up. Two dominos --one moves and the other falls down. Is that love? Love isn't easing our loneliness!
People feel empty inside and rush to fill the emptiness with someone. That isn't love.
In order to flee from emptiness and loneliness, people surrender to all kinds of activities, to work, or to someone's arms. But the cure for loneliness isn't contact with human beings; it's contact with REALITY.
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Love, once again, is not easing our loneliness. When people talk about love, they're usually talking about a good to be bargained over.
"You're good to me? I'll be good to you! You're pleasant for me? I'll be pleasant to you! You're not kind to me? Funny, the pleasant feelings I had about you have turned bitter!"
Is that love? That is the market of emotions disguised as attitudes of love.
Love isn't desire. Marriages built on desire are fragile, ready to come apart. "I have many expectation on you, you'd better not disappoint me."
"You have expectations on me, I'd better fulfill them."
"You need me, I need you. I need to find my happiness in you! You need to find your
happiness in me."
And so the fights began. That's where the feeling of possession begins.
Where that kind of desire exists, there's a threat. And where there's a threat, there's fear. And where there's fear, there's no love. For we always hate what we fear. And perfect love cast out fear!
Love isn't desire; it is not fixation. Being impassioned is the exact opposite of love, but passion is canonized EVERYWHERE. It is an illness that everyone is trying to pass on to us. It can be heard in movies and in love songs. "I love you, I can't live without you!"
I can't live without you? Love? That's hunger!!! When I become impassioned over you, I stop seeing you. Wherever there's a powerful emotion, whether positive or negative, I can't see. Emotion gets in the way and makes me project my own needs on the other.
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Love means, at the very least, clarity of perception and precision of response. Seeing the other as clearly as he or she is. That is the least that I can ask of love.
How can I love you if I don't see you? Usually when we look, we don't see one another. We are looking for an image. Does a husband relate to his wife or to an image he has built of her? Does a wife relate to her husband or to an image she has formed of him?
I have an experience of you. This experience is saved in my memory. I make my judgment based on the experience. I carry it with me. I act or react on that basis, not on the basis where you are now. I look at you through a picture.
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Me again. We now love through our perception. This is why this topic came in after last week topic, FREEDOM. We need to free ourselves from our perception of the world, our attachments (including hurts and disappointment in the past), free from our desires and expectation too. We need to be free to be able to LOVE like Jesus.
Mother Teresa once said, “Love and just love, without any reason.”
:)To 3rd email!
Dear All,
This is some highlight of yesterday’s formation, else than the cutting pineapple, the eating of the fruits and the singing. :)
Jn 13:12-17 Jesus said: I have set an example for you…
Sidartha shared that we is like an empty teapot. Love is the ‘tea’. When we are empty, we can’t give love. Thus we must open our cover and let the love of God flows into us. When we become full, the tea will flow out from our ‘mouth’ (u know what I mean rite?) and fill other’s cup. But we must realize that other people too, can’t be satisfied with our love, our human love. They can only be full by the love of God.
That’s why when we love, we have to get the person closer to God, help them to open their cover and let the love of God flows into them as well.
Ramon shared that love takes many different forms. He loves Pungky (who at that moment sat beside him :P) and he loves his girlfriend, those two love are the same love with different forms. Sister Grace shared that love also has different levels, we love our family with a different level of love as we love a stranger. But as long as that love is not selfish and it suits the description of 1Cor 13:4-11, it is Jesus’ kind of love. :)
So we can love Jesus, love our family, love our friends, love our co-workers, love the toilet-cleaners, love strangers, with the same love but with different levels and forms. Just be careful so that is won’t get replaced by the love that the world taught us.
Love is also intelligent. It can choose the way to express itself in the best way. For extreme example, a wife who loves her abusive husband. If she truly loves him, she wouldn’t just accept the abuse and do nothing, she will do something. Not for the sake of herself only, but for the best of her husband too.
Love is not superficial.
Love is sacred.
Love is AN OPTION. It’s not merely feelings and attraction…
Love means a lot of self-giving, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of joy…
To make your Valentine’s day more meaningful, ask yourself these
questions:
1. What is my idea of loving?
2. What are the difficulties and obstacles that I find in giving myself to others?
3. Am I having an authentic LOVE?
Maybe you can talk about it during your romantic candle-light dinner… hehehehe :P
Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone! Happy loving!!!
P.S. Jesus also wishes all of you a wonderfully wonderful Valentine’s Day. His message for today: I have set an example for you, so LOVE! as I have loved you! ;)
Love ya all,
Vera :)
