Put on Christ; put on love!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 23rd week in Ordinary time

September 9, 2021: Colossians 3: 12-17;  Luke 6: 27-38

If we do not say that the words are from the letter to the Colossians,  one can easily misjudge those as some paraphrasing of a part from the Gospel and as words of Christ himself. Paul had so intensely taken in the spirit of Christ that his insistence of putting on Christ comes from his person much stronger than from his words. Love is presented as the crux of Christ's message. When Paul said, even elsewhere,  to put on Christ, he practically meant putting on love. Love, understood not as childish sentiment of attachment and dependence, but a Christlike selfgiving. 

Love is the sweetest of all teachings of Christ and it is the most difficult of all too, for it comes inbuilt with forgiveness;  forbearance, kindness,  gentleness, integrity and sacrifice. 'What is there in it for me?' - if someone were to ask that question, the answer would be a simple, 'nothing'. There is nothing in love that I intend to gain or get ; all that it really involves is giving and laying down. If I intend to receive anything, it is no love in reality! But the beauty of love is that, in giving, in losing, in laying down... I receive, a hundred fold. 

Does that sound too unrealistic and demanding?  The fact however is,  if we believe being a Christian is to put on Christ, it can never happen except by putting on love!