Remembering Faith: Love as the Call

By: Sem. Yohan D. Rojo

There can never be anything more universal in this world than love. It is an essence that we human, children of God, share. It is something that somehow necessarily clings to us from the moment of conception or even before it during the moment of our parents and ancestors’ union as husband and wife, as bride and bridegroom, as lover and beloved, or as man and woman. Love is carefully woven in this fine spread of cloth that is life - we are wrapped by love. It is abundant, but like the abundance of good air we who benefit from it pollute it, consciously and unconsciously, and then later on forget how good air feels, how love feels.

The sickness of our being, as human, is forgetfulness. We forget that we are creatures of the creator, the children of God out of love. Our age today provides us with so many possibilities and opportunities which we can simply grab for us to live according to our time and not according to our purpose. It is as if our lives are solely driven by our needs and wants and then ultimately become our masters. At a later time of our life we realize that there are so many things that we cannot comprehend and then embark on a search for meaning, for purpose. Some stop trying and let the temporary things of this world satisfy their “missing part”, and so they simply fade away in history. It is a choice between remembering and forgetting. Our decision to remember is the cure for this affliction. It is the act of keeping, of being faithful to what is already given, which is love.

“To love is to will the good of another”

                                                                - St. Augustine

There’s a story in the Bible about such love. It’s the story of Nehemiah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s ruined walls. Nehemiah gave up a good life in order to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Though he and those who helped him rebuild the walls were faced with many challenges and so they suffered, they nonetheless succeeded. They were all joined by love. This work that benefited everyone - the walls were for protection against hostile neighbors - is an act of love for another. Their faith for God’s help was enjoined by their love for their own.

“We are heirs of the work of generations and at the same time shapers of the future of all who will live after us”

                                                - Compendium of the Social Doctrines of the Church, P. # 274)

Our keeping of love and our embracing of the Faith that we profess are the works of this present generation and that someday these works will be the works of the next generation, an inheritance indeed. Just like a responsible parent, we would wish to provide the children a good life. We do this by doing what Nehemiah and his followers did, which was to work together for everyone’s sake. if we fail to do so many may suffer for when a Christian suffers, we all suffer (1cor.12:26). Just as when our heart fails, our body fails with it.

It is love like that of Christ, the one who bore the cross and then was nailed on the cross and suffered pain and death to allow and to guide us to salvation, that must reign in our hearts. With this love we can keep on rebuilding our faith that was and is still divinely provided. Let us then have recourse to love and witness Christ’s resurrection in everyone who remembers.