LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday 1: 5th March, 2017
Gen 2:7-9: 3:1-7; Rom 5:12-19; Mt 4:1-11
Why did God make the tree, if God wanted them never to eat of it?
Why should that fruit be there first of all, if God knew it would not help them?
These top the list of FAQs that arise from today's Word. This lent we are called to look at this reality from the point of view of love. What stands out is the fact that to love is a choice!
God chose to gift us with the capacity to choose, yes Choice is a gift. If we get to see, it is this capacity to choose is the fundamental element of human dignity. Freedom and Autonomy are two things that define a human person. When they are missing there is a breach of human rights, loss of human dignity and a crisis of very humanity. This is what is happening in many a places today where this freedom and autonomy is not given, or controlled or hunted out. God made us human persons out of love; in love God has given the capacity to choose!
God made a choice to love us and gave us a sign of God's love in that choice, yes Choice is a sign. Choice is a sign that we love, that we give importance to someone. The Word today establishes how God made a choice to love us and gave us a sign of that choice through Jesus Christ the only Son of God. For God so loved the world that God gave the only Son that the world may have life. A Sign of God's everlasting love is the fact that God chose to love us regardless of what and who we are.
God invites us to take up the same call to choose to love authentically, yes Choice is a challenge. The world claims it loves, but it loves things and uses people. The true love that the Lord teaches us is to love persons and use things. But that is a choice, a choice which is a challenge. We need to make a choice to be authentic come what may, we need to forego of our ego, we are called to put the Other and the others much before me and mine.
Yes...to love is a choice...a choice which is a gift from God; a choice that has been given s a sign from God. a choice that challenges me to put God and my neighbours before myself. May this season of Lent help us to grow in this love.