Jesus gave us the one essential command regarding other human beings when He said that we must love one another. However, He did not say that we were to love other human beings because they were human beings. We are to love them because they are our brothers and sisters, and we all have one Father in heaven. Love is something that relates us to other persons as persons. . .
True religion is all about love and love is all about persons, and person is a matter of relationship. You are only you because of your relationship with your parents, with other people, and above all with God. An unrelated human being is not alive as a person. When Jesus tells us what we are He does not need to tell us that we are human beings, but He does tell us, because we need to realize it, that we are brothers and sisters and members of a family . . . The way we relate to other persons is crucial for our personal well-being . . . For true personal integrity and health we need to love our neighbor as ourselves; it is not just a religious matter. Your life as a person depends on your love. Without love you are crippled as a person.
Since love is so essential to us if we are to be ourselves, and even more so if we are to be true children of God, it is important to have a right idea as to what love really is. If your idea is wrong as to what love for other persons is . . . then you will not be built up and made whole and happy through it. . .
The love that you must give to other persons comes from you as the individual, splendid person you are. It is something you give; it is outgoing. Love is not a reaction to another person. . .
Love is expressed by a relationship of goodwill coming from you towards another person whether he returns it or not, and even if he is an enemy. You can have a relationship of goodwill towards anyone, even if your reaction to his presence or the thought of him fills you with a feeling of repugnance, irritation, anger, or anything else. If you have goodwill towards someone, then you love him even if you find him insufferable. Love is not a reaction to someone else; it is you, as your good self, sending forth goodwill toward others who may be good or bad; just as God sends His rain to refresh the good and the bad, and . . . His Spirit of Love to change sinners who do not love into saints who do, as well as sending it out on those who always return His love. .
Reactions are conditional, depending on circumstances. Love is unconditional; it has no strings attached. It comes from simple goodness given to us by God. “God is love, and he who lives in love lives in God and God in him.” We cannot get rid of all our bad reactions any more than we can produce good reactions all the time, but by God’s grace, we can love all the time. We can have a relationship of goodwill toward everyone.
What makes us the splendid, unique, individual persons that we are is personal love for others. It is a love so personal that your love is not the same as mine or anyone else’s. But we all draw our own personal, unique love from the all-embracing love of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, which is communicated to us in a brilliant, supernatural way through baptism and our Christian lives. . .
If we really love, if we really make the increase of love in ourselves the one goal and ambition of our life, we shall receive a closer and closer personal contact with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit. This will make us at one with all creation and at one with ourselves. We shall become the mature, happy, healthy, and beautiful persons God made us to be.
