Love: can there be a measure?

WORD 2day: Friday, 19th week in Ordinary time

August 13, 2021 - Joshua 24: 1-13; Matthew 19: 3-12

The gratuitous love of God and the conditional love of humans – that is the contrast the Word brings to the fore today. Taking the reins from Moses, the young Joshua consolidates his people reminding them of the great history of faith and wonders that they have behind them, the great things that God had accomplished for them though they deserved none of them! What a way to begin a leadership, reminding ourselves of the unconditional love of God!

The love that God lavishes on us, and the measure in which God does it, we do not deserve it at all. It is a gratuitous gift from God and God has never counted the cost, even to the extent of sending the only Son of God as a ransom on our behalf (cf. John 3:16). That love is the model set before us, by Jesus. It is not a mere polemic on the part of Jesus, it is done deliberately.

When Jesus changed the commandment of Leviticus (19:18) from ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ to ‘love one another as I have loved you’ (Jn 13:34), Jesus made a deliberate choice to propose God’s love as the model. Having God, who is Love itself, as the measure, can we ever love enough? Accepting one another, forgiving one another, being good to one another, wishing the good of the other with all one's heart – in all these we are called to measure up to none less than God, who is Love itself! 

If we truly accept Christ's teaching on love, we cannot stop loving at any point and for any reason! Can there really be a limit, a measure?