Loving alone is impossible
For work I had to listen to the installation homily of Monsignor Delpini, archbishop of Milan, that of September 24, of which I had read some echoes in online titles, and that I was distractedly liked (once, then, we make a separate post on the management of the excessive amount of information coming from the network, and also on the assault of beautiful things within our reach: they are too many and, even here, as in spiritual life, it takes a method.Then you tell me yours, I tell you my own, real version and photoshopped version, one in which one myself disciplined as an orthodox monk has a list of books to read, and proceeds tidy, and does not open facebook if not after completing the liturgy of the hours.The real version I tell it in private to those who promise me that it will please me anyway) .
Anyway, I was saying, this time I did not just run through it quickly but I listened to it all because I had to find a phrase for the piece on it that I was mounting. I know, it's a shame, but they also pay me to do this. A moving homily, very sweet and deep, a music, almost, a song. The heart: the glory of God is to make man capable of love. Not a roll of drums, not flaming swords, but the ability to love is a sign of God's omnipotence. The fact that it makes us, mud creatures, capable of something so out of our reach. "Every day", Monsignor Delpini told me in the interview, "I see people getting up to help their children go to school, to work, and they drive slowly in the car to avoid accidents. Every day I see traces of this glory of God. "
I asked myself - am I able to love? I had a kind of unveiling. An apocalypse. Both in the sense of unveiling, both in the sense of the end of the world. Because with horror I had as the intuition of my inability to love. I can not do it. I do not know how to love the dearest of loved ones when they disappoint me, when they do not live up to my expectations, when for example they seem to tell me, by their behavior, that I have made something wrong as a mother (more exactly, there are times when I wonder if I did something wrong, but if I did something right).
Here, loving is difficult . To love is a grace. Loving the neighbors is very difficult. Because it's not just a matter of being kind to a stranger, that's easy. It is a matter of accepting your image that the other who knows you well sends you back to you, and which is not always flattering. Loving the neighbors is the hardest thing in the world, because it has to do with our truth. So loving really always implies, first, accepting the limit.
Sometimes we believe we love God because we do not love anyone. All are wrong (except us), all disappoint, then we take refuge in our idea of God. He is so lovable, he loves us.
When you feel too mystical, go and see your mother-in-law - a friar always knows that I know. When you feel good, do something serious for your sister-in-law, for the cousin. You lose something of yours. But not the volunteer hour. Get the program ruined. Stay with your children and accept that they do absolutely nothing of what you thought you had taught. They avoid it scientifically. And continue undaunted despite your sermons. Accept to keep quiet and continue to love. In fact, it begins. Because I suspect that after hearing homilies, retreats, meetings, lectures, meditations, I am still at the beginning.
Loving alone is impossible. We like St. Paul see the good, but we can not do it. And it is not a question of trying even harder, but of surrendering ourselves to our wickedness, and of begging for the grace to be healed. Sometimes. At least for a few moments.