The Love That Never Lets Go

where do broken hearts go?

...do they find their way home? 

Some Lenten Scribbles

1. the season

• Lent is properly the time for renewal. (to reset)
• Lent is properly the time for conversion. (to redirect)
• Lent is properly the time for transformation. (to be changed)

• We move from

sin to contrition (awareness of error and remorse for error)

contrition to reconciliation (remorse for error to experiencing forgiveness) reconciliation to mission (experiencing forgiveness to sharing/spreading the love)

• The season invites us to journey from slavery towards freedom—an exodus of the soul.

2. the exodus

• Moving from slavery to freedom is as much an interior journey as it is exterior. (it involves changing one's mentality & parameters)
• We move from slavery to sin towards the freedom of moral choice!
• Indulgence of sin is a “slavery” because, like a drug, it feeds on our compulsions. It distorts what may be natural into what isbase.

[Many mistake giving in to instincts or natural inclinations as freedom and not a slavery. They cannot understand how living according to what is seemingly innately pleasurable or naturally easy can be a slavery (and placing restraints upon them is actually freedom). Consider, though, a twig floating in a river. The twig may think it is free because, well, it naturally flows with the river. But in fact, it is unfree because it is the river that’s actually in control of its destiny—not itself! If the river plunges into a waterfall, the twig will plunge down with it.

Consider, though, if the twig decides it belongs to the riverbank. It discovers that its destiny, its tadhana, is to be planted on the soil—and it decides to swim! Haha. Yes, it decides to swim to the riverbank, contrary to what the river naturally wants. Now that is freedom!]

• The choice of the good is a “freedom” because it brings to fore our capacity for choice. It flexes the will and stimulates reason to aspire and grasp for things nobler than its own concerns.

[A twig, of course, cannot choose and much less cannot swim. But we are not twigs. We are given minds, hearts, and souls with which we can think, feel, and sense (intuit) what is our destiny. Freedom is to choose the good, and not the convenient; it is to choose the best, and not the most pleasurable; it is to choose to submit to God’s will, in freedom, generosity, and love—so that we may truly know how to be liberated! Consider this psalm… (cf. Ps119:30-32)]

“I bind myself to do your will,

            You give freedom to my heart.”

3. the freedom of love

• What is God’s will? That we learn love. (cf. Jn 13:34ff, 15:12ff)
• Thus, perhaps as a fitting commentary to the psalm, St. Augustine said, “Love, and do whatever you will.”

[Love is the precondition for human choice and action. Love is the liberating force, the (de)liberating ingredient, in human life. When love conditions our lives, then we are truly free.]

• God willed to teach us Love through His Son:

         - Love is generosity. He sent His Only-begotten Son… (cf. Jn. 3:17ff)
         - Love is aspiring for the good of the other. …So that we may be saved. (cf. Jn. 3:17ff)
         - Love communes. We are not slaves, but friends. (cf. Jn. 15:15ff)
         - Love is total. All our mind, strength, heart, & self. (cf. Mk. 12:30ff and parallels)

[To love God with all our mind, heart, and strength seems total enough… but to love others as we love ourselves is a reiteration of that: can we really love ourselves only partially? Someone who hates even the tiniest bit in himself is an unhappy person; that one is discontent. But true happiness and contentment lay in being able to love ourselves wholly—to accept our own wounds and imperfections, to forgive our frailties and inadequacies, and still see enough potential in ourselves so that we may not despair and still challenge ourselves to grow, be better, learn, and bloom! Love, therefore, is always TOTAL. Anything less is not love—perhaps, at best, merely affection but not love.]

4. what is love?

• St. Paul provides a lengthier exposition about what love is (1 Corithians 13:4ff):

Love is kind. Love is peaceable. Love is patient. Love does not envy. Love is not boastful. Love is not arrogant. Love is not rude. Love is not stubborn or forceful. Love is not resentful. Love is not irritable. Love does not rejoice in wrong, but in right. Love bears all things, believes, hopes, and endures. Love never ends…

[Consider the descriptive words--they are attitude words! Those are not romantic words… those are dispositional words. This is a checklist of how to answer, “Am I a loving person?”]

5. love hurts… or does it?

• Love. BIG word. It is able to make us whole. It is able to break us, too.
• But is it “love” itself that hurts and wounds us? Rather, it is our experience of being in love.

[When we fall in love, or when we love someone—anyone, even family and friends—we open ourselves up. When we are hurt, it is not so much that LOVE itself that had hurt us! People hurt us, when they do not reciprocate the love we so generously, totally offer… but we blame love.]

• We make ourselves vulnerable when in love. And because Love makes us lower our defenses—we tend to blame Love as if it was Love itself that had hurt us.

[Because we think, if Love did not lower our defenses, if Love didn’t attach our hearts to others, if Love did not make us seek to be loved back, then we wouldn’t have been hurt. Loving is too much a risk. Loving is not worth it. And it’s easier to blame Love, not the beloved. Actually, we blame ourselves for loving at all.]

• This is dangerous because it has a tendency to place limits around Love. Love, then, ceases to be free. It becomes bound by “self-interest”– the point just before it starts to hurt.

[Yes, it no longer becomes “Love until it hurts…” but its ugly counter-reality: “Love, but only just before it hurts.” Because when it threatens to break your heart, flee! Walang Forever!]

6. ever-loving broken hearts

• Our broken hearts are not unknown to God.

[He knows how to have a broken heart. Remember, it was He Who loved us first (cf. 1Jn 4:19)! When He fell in love, He poured out His creativity. And the pinnacle of His creative love is humanity—made in His own image! Meaning, a creature bestowed with His divine capacities—to know, to think, and most importantly, to love.]

• God Who Is Love, in love with unfaithful humanity, has made Himself vulnerable in His incarnation.

[But humanity was unfaithful, ungrateful, and unappreciative. We sinned, despite all the good things He has given us. We’d rather be slaves instead offree. But Love seeks for the good of the other! And so God chose to save us from our slavery (cf 1Jn 4:9). And Love makes the lover vulnerable: and what a great act of love it was that God chose to be vulnerable in the Incarnation!]

• We have hurt Him and broken His heart many times and, in a horrifying way, tortured and murdered Him despite being blameless in anything.

[He sought us. Sinuyo N’ya tayo. He called us back to Himself, through teaching and miracles and chastisements. Because Love is total, He enters into His Passion as an eternal sign of His love that will never give up on us!]

• And Great Lover says, I choose this. Freely. Generously. And, most importantly, lovingly.

[This is not “Love ‘til it hurts.” This is, “Love even if it hurts.” This is, “I will not give up on you.” For Love believes in the beloved, hopes in the beloved, and endures all things for the beloved. Martir ba ito? Yes. For what is martyrdom other than saying, Your good is more important than myself. Don’t think of romantic love only for this—such love is often manifested by fathers, mothers, breadwinners, teachers, health workers, priests, religious, and others who freely choose to put others before themselves.]

• Then He stretched out His arms and showed us the limit of Love—eternity: where broken hearts go.

[Broken heart? Look to the cross. ‘Nuff said.]

• Mero’ng Forever: God’s love never gives up.

[Jesus Christ rose again after the third day. The marks of His wounds were not erased in His glorified body—because Love is forever. What used to be marks of betrayal are now trophies of love; what seem as scars of rejection are now proofs that Love, mercy, and forgiveness conquers all. Jesus came back to His friends who had actually abandoned Him. Hindi ko kayo sinusukuan. He freely offered His remorseful friends His peace, His reconciliation. And it was this experience, clearly fulfilled on Pentecost, that pushed them out to preach the undying Love of the God Who Knows Broken Hearts: the Good News was indeed a Gospel of Love!]

• We must ground ourselves on His love first, and let that condition all our other “loves”…

[We are pushed to a mission as well. During Lent, or what remains of it, how is our love-relationship with God? Is our love-relationship with God the first and foremost relationship in our life? How have we broken His heart? How do we intend to stop breaking His heart?]

• When we stop breaking God’s heart, He’ll keep our hearts whole… being in-love with other people may hurt us, but they will no longer break us—because it is God’s love that sustains us. All are loved in God; God is our ultimate and only affirmation.
• Remember? Sinong makapaghihiwalay… We are no longer afraid. Nothing can touch us. We will love, and love fully, because we are faithfully loved.

[cf Rom 8:38-39. Lent is pointing us to the resurrection. Hopefully, we embrace the fruits of the resurrection in our lives. One of them is a Spirit-moved, faith-directed, Love-inspired lifestyle! When we realize we have been given AWESOME powers through the Holy Spirit! To Love is one of them. May we all be signs of Christ alive to all we meet.]

Some songs (covered wonderfully) that played while this was being developed:

Where do Broken Hearts Go (https://youtu.be/s2qBdL1em6I)

Lift Up Your Hands (https://youtu.be/GKxcvbuHre4)

Sinong Makapaghihiwalay (https://youtu.be/s2qBdL1em6I) *it's almost a sin no one's did a better cover of this beautiful song!