Ever been in love?

Lent 3, Friday
(Hos 14:2-10; Mark 12:28-34)

There is a movie, now showing in some select theaters entitled, “Of Gods and Men”. It is about French Cistercian Monks who lived in a small, troubled Algerian Muslim village, living the Christian faith in community as monks, and witnessing in service to the people of the village. In one scene, a young lady asked one of the monks, an old man of maybe about 70.

“How do you know you are in love?”

“There’s something inside you that comes alive. The presence of someone. It’s irrepressible and makes your heart beat faster, usually. It’s an attraction , a desire. It’s very beautiful. No use asking too many questions. It just happens. Things are as usual then suddenly, happiness arrives or the hope of it. It’s lots of things. But you are in turmoil, great turmoil. Especially the first time.”

“Ever been in love?”

“Yes, several times. And I encountered another love, even greater. And I answered that love. It’s been a while now, over 60 years.”

This same compelling love is what the readings remind us today. The first reading from the prophet Hosea tells us of the great love of God. Amidst the infidelity of Israel, God continues to love his people. Like a husband who seeks out his wife, and offers her total forgiveness, God promises to heal his people, to renew them, to give them life – to make them blossom like the lily, grow like the Lebanon cedar, and flourish like the olive tree. They need only to repent.

For our worship, this has been beautifully put into song. “Come back to me, with all your heart. Don’t let fear, keep us apart. Long have I waited for your coming home to me and living deeply our new life.”

The season of Lent reminds us of this great love which beckons us home, calling us to live in the life of God, attracting us, compelling us to respond, wanting to come alive in us, wanting to come alive in our lives. “Ever been in love?” “Yes, several times. And I encountered another love, a greater love.”

We all long to be loved, and we look for that love. The wonder of it, the Far Greater Love is looking for us, longing to love us. We only have to open ourselves to God. And then we will find love, or better still, and more appropriately, Love will find us.

This love that found us, the love that fills our heart, as Romans 3:4-5 would tell us, “the love of God that fills our heart through the gift of the Holy Spirit” moves us to give love in return. And love is not lost when we give it. It is rather blossoms, grows, flourishes. Loved by God, we are called to live in love – for God and others, just as God has loved us.

Rephrased, the question of the young woman may also be asked of us – “Have you ever owned in your heart that you are loved, loved by a Far Greater Love? Have you ever loved as you have been loved?”