To Grow in my capacity to love

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

August 28, 2021: Celebrating St. Augustine

1 Thessalonians 4: 9-11; Matthew 25: 14-30

You have learnt from God to love one another - what beautiful words from Paul about the Thessalonians. It has to be said so of every Christian - that we have learnt from God how to love one another! This has two important consequences: that we love one another, and that we love like God! God has given us the capacity to love, and it is our responsibility to grow in that capacity to love - only then shall the Lord tell us: Well done my good and faithful servant!

Augustine, the saint we celebrate today, believed in this, taught this and gave this as the most categorical test of all: the test of love. If you are a Christian, you love! Love and do what you wish, he would say! If love is true and God-like, there is no need of any other rule book or code of conduct. The situation in the world today is so painful and inhuman, because the rule of love is so neglected and disrespected. 

Yesterday, we celebrated Monica, the mother of Augustine... the love of that mother made a saint of her son. Today, we have Augustine who understood the absolute value of love, in comparison to all the intellectual prowess and academic accomplishments that he could really boast of. He knew the right Christian mindset - that of love. Those who love are born of God and they have known God. Those do not love God, do not know God. 

Of all the gifts that God has given us - our talents, our varied faculties, our capabilities and our potentialities - the greatest is the capacity to love. Because, it is this capacity that helps one to share in the very nature of God: God is love, isn't it! And God expects that we grow day by day in that love - from ordinary love to that of its greatest form. There is no greater love, than one laying down his/her life for an other! It can never be the other way around, making sure I live at the cost of anything, or anyone! 

A true Christian therefore is one who loves, and one who grows everyday in that capacity to love.