Love or war

This is the great question of history, in addition to the questions of “What is love? What is truth?” I’d like to share how my marriage, most recently has brought this thought to the forefront of my mind with all the friction we have in society. Love in the classic definition is to will the good of the other. The truth of love is sacrifice, just as Jesus gives us the definitive example on the Cross. God so loved the world, that He gave us His only begotten Son to not only dwell among us and our suffering, but also to lay His life down that we might find plentiful redemption in this sacrificial love. Through sacrifice of self, it allows God to transform, transcend and transfigure our suffering into a new and resurrected life.

With this foundation, my life has been full of challenges these past 6 months, some of you have witnessed it with my vehicle struggles, but for the most part my faith doesn’t allow many to see it because these temporal moments do not get in the way of a bigger picture that God is always working in my life and others. The greater the struggle, the more I feel I’m close to something big. Jesus suffers on His way to Calvary, we too, will have a similar suffering, just before the truly miraculous can happen. Our society often struggles with this, do we go to war, which will only exacerbate divisions and residual hatred, or like a true marriage, will we lay our life down for another, trusting in God to bring about the greater good.

This is where my marriage has really come to life in me. For the past several years I have engaged in a vicious circle of criticize and defend with my wife. One of us will criticize the other and then in our insecurity we get defensive and point the finger at the other saying you do the same thing. From there it spirals out of control to an eventual argument. The most frustrating part is I then become resentful to this woman I truly love and know I’m meant to be with, which then leads me to become more distant with her, and she with me despite having a truly great love and miraculous child together.

This in a nutshell is our society, we are all human beings made in the image of God, but due to different cultural issues, nuances and historical misunderstandings, we hold onto these hostilities and resentments. Instead of finding ways to reconcile them, we amplify them to the point they become wars, adding to the history of hostility. Pope Leo XIV has been reminding us of this in great measure recently as the world thinks that a nationalistic pride of imposing it’s military mite will somehow dispel the challenges. Rome and every other superpower, war machine and empire has see that fallen fate, only to be remembered as something that once was. There’s only one institution that is and continues to say that it is the way, and that’s the Catholic Church, under the banner of a sacrificial love. We have our moments in history, like our Jewish ancestral roots, which started this great story. When we rely on a political power of the world, we then fall into a divisive suffering void of God. However He eventually pulls us out of the rut, so long as we rely on Him and not our own fallen ways.

This brings me back to my current example and honest struggle. To love, when you feel it is not being reciprocated. As Jesus carried His Cross, there was little consolation, and those who did console Him, are immortalized in the tradition. The majority however are remembered like Peter, that fled in fear of the mob. We live in a blood thirsty world, to where l was recently reminded that it’s more loving to execute a child in the womb because it might experience poverty, than to give it a chance to live that maybe it might be a source of hope and remedy, despite challenging circumstance. You might say execute is a strong word by the way, but there’s an ancient practice called “quartering” without the graphic details, the “modern definition of women’s health” is quartering a child that the mother is told could be an inconvenience to her life.

This is the pivotal understanding of love. A mother in the greatness of the miracle of life has the greatest choice, to lay her life down in sacrificial love for a child or to practice the pagan sacrifice like those of the Aztec empire did to their enemies. Reality is those that worship death, will eventually experience similar consequences, but those who value life, will be treated as they wish to be treated. One will spread death, the other prosperity, peace and fullness of life and love. Again my marriage teaches me. Do I just throw away this gift of love that God gave me, because of my pride that I feel right in holding onto wounds against me, or do I let them go. As I have chosen to let them go, I was met with immediate resistance that at times made me feel like giving up and going to war with the person I loved. I looked around though and saw more unhappiness, especially the risk of hurting my daughter in this war. I made the difficult decision that I had to let go, and trust in the uncertain. My spiritual director even encouraged me to do the right thing, even if it meant I might not receive the same in return.

While it’s very early in the process, with lots of prayer the mountains that once seemed too high to climb, are now being moved. A small example when everything was at it’s pinnacle I made a simple gesture to my wife I previously failed at, to simply pray for her. In the mix of praying for her, our prayer was answered the following week which paved the way for her to find some rest in the challenges of her own life. This blessing then opened the door for us to reconnect and spend time with each other more regularly as I put my endeavors on hold to focus on serving her. This again is our struggle in society, do we seek to altruistically serve each other, or is a transactional relationship which only gives if we are receiving. As I have learned to detach from my giving, the more it’s allowed God to use the gift perfectly according to His will instead of my own ways which will not sustain. My marriage again is an example.

At times I experience temptation to impose my will on my wife with guilt and whatever other tactic of the world/the diabolical/divisive one. Spiritually however I resist those temptations, and in love I just surrender, trusting in the good to prevail eventually with her free will making the choice to love me again, as I hope for. I’ve felt hopeless at times, but the more I love, the brighter the light of Christ burns in our moments. Her birthday last night was a reminder of this moment. I spent the day serving her, and our friends and family rallied around this moment, and by the end it brought a great joy that had not been experience in a while. This included cooking a nice meal that everyone enjoyed, and even brought out compliments from others that normally would not compliment me. Again, a powerful reminder of what love can do, and doing all things with great love. Personally for me, despite being a bit fatigued during these times, it gives me a different energy that I feed on. While I am in fear of sustainability, fueled with love, I keep moving forward to a greater peace. This has been my 15+ years back in the Church.

I’ll close with this as it will be my last blog for a while, but I always want to tie this into business as well. Should my relationship with my wife end in divorce, just like our society which as a majority practices divorce now days, especially in the institution of the Church, our resources God blesses us with are divided. Together we are better, divided we use more resources and energy for lesser results. A great example that crosses my mind is housing. What if we weren’t spending money for dozen of different churches in a neighborhood, but instead we were all one church with our resources pooled together. The other properties could then be housing or whatever other need for the community, instead of another house for the people of God. I think you get the analogy of division in religion and in our homes. We do more together with our resources than divided. This was the reminder as my wife helped me with her party and I happily accepted the help instead of making her feel like she was in my way. Our meal was perfect when it was done with love. Our businesses can be the same, if we did it to serve others, instead of just to serve ourselves and personal needs. As I give to those around me, the people of my markets give to me in so many ways. Recently with prayers, and other times with material good, we all end up serving each other in love if we are morally calibrated to our Creator.