Suffering and Love

It's Holy Week! Hands down one of the most amazing weeks of the year. This year I'm staying "home" here in Cincinnati and am getting pretty excited to experience Holy Week at my parish, and all of the Cincinnati traditions that come along with Holy Week and Easter.

So, it's been a little while since I've blogged. But I knew right away what I wanted to talk about: suffering and love.

I think a lot of the time we have a somewhat skewed vision of what love honestly is. When I ask someone in "In Control" what love is about nineteen times out of twenty someone will respond "it's a really strong feeling when you really care about someone." That's not bad, but we're missing something important: love isn't just about feelings. Love is a choice, a decision to put someone else above yourself. Or, in other words, it's about sacrifice.

I was reading an amazing book this week called I Believe in Love, and in this book there is an awesome thought: "What is a love that does not prove itself? I told you that love is a choice. What merit is there in choosing Jesus if we only have to follow Him on a path of roses? How would we know if it was He or the roses on the pathway which we were following?" Love proves itself in suffering. I think Holy Week is a great time to reflect on this. What is my attitude towards the Cross? What is authentic love? It is not simply the roses, but the suffering, too.

"See, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand." ~ Isaiah 49:15.