The Work of Love

There are enough renowned retreats in the world right now to familiarize the majority of us with what now has a name as the “retreat high.” Coming out of retreats, it’s hard to not to feel completely on fire with God’s redeeming Love. It’s a beautiful thing to reawaken, in the company of the Mystical Body of Christ, our brethren, the passionate love we feel for our Lord God on high. Sooner or later though, we all come out of that high.

For some, it can be as soon as leaving the retreat and entering into the world that seems to drag us down rather than lift us up. For others, that high can go on for months as they foster it in holy adoration, recitation of the rosary, and reading the bible. Even they eventually hit the wall though. Busy lives set in, family expectations, work. All these things start to take their toll on our time as we start to rationalize that we aren’t ignoring God for any reason beyond we just lack the time. And a deep longing sets itself deep within our souls, as we hunger for the passionate love affair we have with God to return. That our true love will reignite once more between us and God. I’ll let you in on a secret: the only person lacking in that relationship is ourselves.

It should come as no surprise to any of us that the fairy tale definition of “true love” is all but unreal. While it is the most magical, beautiful, wonderful thing on God’s green earth, it lacks a bit of the real version of the tale. A relationship, marriage, love… they all take work. The “feeling” of love, that’s not the heart of love (pun intended). Love is sacrifice. It’s time given up for the other, talking, listening, and, well, loving. Love is not something that can be fostered with nothing.

Our earthly loves and marriages only mirror the real image of Christ, the Bridegroom, and His Church (see Matthew 25 & Mark 2). Our true love is Christ, and… That means our relationship with Him needs work too. Those “highs” don’t last forever any more than the feelings of infatuation through a 50-year marriage. We are human, and on our end, our relationship will start to feel like it is foundering. God always has His hand out, like the loyal and loving Bridegroom that He is, but we are stubborn enough to look Him in the face and say we don’t have time for a date with Him. Then we proceed to wonder why we feel so empty inside. Sad, isn’t it? We had a taste of the beauty that comes with God’s Love, and without it, a part of our soul feels dead.

So next time you think you don’t have time to spend with Love Himself, just be sure that you want that marriage to fall apart, because no relationship will be happy without time spent on it and no heart is whole without the very Love that made him.