Love is the path of God

By Mary Regina Morrell
© Catholic Online 2005

"Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking."? Carl Jung

When I was child, and I had, as all children do, insistently ask my mother the "WHY!" question, she would inevitably respond, "Because I said so!"

I hated that answer. There was no rebuttal, no reasoning, no chance of getting around whatever it was she wanted me to do.

As a sometimes belligerent teenager I added my un-welcomed perspective that her statement would have made a good ending to the Ten Commandments. It was also at that point in time when I would emphatically remind her that I was NEVER going to give my children that answer. I, superior parent that I was certainly destined to be, would always discuss and clarify my reasons for something.

Then I had children -- or perhaps it is more appropriate to state, my children had me "" on more than one occasion where my discussions and clarifications were simply a waste of precious breath. Then, before my psyche could register that I was traveling down a path I had resolved never to go, the words would be spilling out of my mouth "" "Because I said so!!" So much for resolutions.

This little remnant of my childhood comes back to me at times when I am studying Scripture, or often when I am listening to an insightful homily, and the thought is one of commandment. Some years ago it came to mind again when, during a prayer service, the words of John were read, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another."

I had grown up understanding commandment, especially God's commandments, as being rules by which we must live, for one reason only " God said so!

But in the context of this reading my understanding of commandment no longer made any sense. After all, what kind of love is it, if it exists only because God said you should do it, and how, after all, does someone, even God, force a person to love?

Fortunately for me, my on-going education included study of the Jewish foundations of our faith, and in particular, the Hebrew language.

In Hebrew the word for commandment is "halakhah" and is usually translated as "Jewish Law." But interestingly enough, as the Hebrew language always proves, the more literal translation may be "the path that one walks."

Now I was beginning to understand " love as the path one walks " that was something I could embrace.

I also learned over the years that one of the most meaningful reasons for observing the laws is not simply obligation but the increasing of one's spiritual life. Observing "halakhah" turns the ordinary, mundane acts of daily living, such as washing, eating or getting dressed, into acts of religious significance.

And if such ordinary tasks can take on a holy significance through the commandments, how much power and potential is there in love made divine?

Surely, Jesus knew well the transforming power of such love and so, rather than just utter the commandment, he showed us how to walk the path he wanted us to take and remains present with us in our walk.

Jesus' path was one of passion and prayer, healing, teaching and preaching; one of faithfulness to love and purpose, filled with compassion and fervor, humility and strength, and inclined always toward self-sacrifice. His path, and ours, is narrow, difficult, filled with rocks and sometimes covered with brambles, but unfailingly leads to the heart of God.

Such is the power of love.

Contact

Diocese of Metuchen
http://www.diometuchen.org NJ, US
Mary Regina Morrell - Associate Director, Office of Religious Education, 732 562.1990

Email

mmorrell@diometuchen.org

Keywords

Love, path, commandment

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