Love and Sacrifice

First Love and Sacrifice “Love and sacrifice belong together.” This sentence is generally repeated and quite true. But it is not always well understood, at least from beginners in spiritual life. Some conclude that if they love Christ they must undergo special repentance and mortification to prove their love. In such a form, this interpretation will almost always be a misunderstanding, so it needs to be thoroughly discussed and well thought through its various aspects. First, let’s look at the comparison of human life. I go to him and tell him that I wanted to prove my love to him, so I stayed without food and went home from work on foot instead of going by tram showed that I love him. Normally he should be moved by my devotion. But he would probably think I was a little weirdo, and he would be right. Love does not wish, it cannot wish a loved one to suffer because of suffering or even to prove his love. It is in fact a very dubious proof of love and quite a clear proof of lack of common sense. But suppose I would say, “Look, I bought you a present, I think you’ll like it. I don’t know.” I had to do without lunch, and I had to walk home to save money, but I did. “Then the victim would make sense and be a proof of love (though love doesn’t want to show off its self-denial too much.) what we have given before we have given up.) Love for God demands sacrifice, but not in the weird sense we mentioned above. In what sense it wants sacrifice, we are going to explain now, but first learn from the previous example. that suffering and self-esteem are never required by God for themselves, by themselves, they are negative and insignificant – meaning and value have only their positive focus on something higher. and accepting it means necessarily totally surrendering, never giving priority to their wishes and affections that would clash with personal demands love for the other, love for God requires us to keep the commandments that are only guidelines for directing our lives to him. Concentrating our lives then requires us to deny our tendency to seek natural satisfaction that somehow goes against God’s will, expressed in the commandments. The will has us to self-control, to subordinate our instincts, passions and desires to the rule of reason enlightened by God’s grace. Our way to God is not purely positive after original sin. It is first to overcome something negative – the unreasonable tendency to seek oneself and selfishly exploit everything. There is an initial lack of balance and harmony in all our tendencies. To direct them to God is above all to rectify them. It is not enough to turn it off again to straighten the curled cardboard. We have to bend it on the other side and hold it for a while. Therefore, in an ascetic effort for balance and perfect control, we do not limit ourselves to avoiding everything wrong. Our efforts will include renouncing what is inevitable to strengthen what is weak and distorted in us. Posts and other repentant deeds are aimed at subordinating the tendencies of the nature of reason, enlightened by faith, so that in all our activities we will not go as children without thought to what naturally entices us. Our goal is to achieve enlightened judgment and control over natural tendencies so that our first thought applies to God whom we love and in whose light we judge and act. When our natural tendencies are stronger in some ways, our efforts to subordinate them to love of God must be more determined and firm. Every individual must measure the way of their anesthesia. A man for whom alcoholic beverage is no danger may use it moderately. A man who is prone to alcohol must give up completely. In this renunciation and in others, we do not condemn the things that God has done. But man recognizes his weakness and resists the clutter of the natural passions that seek to exploit the good created by God. Thus, asceticism is a vigilance against us that could lead to separation from God. This vigilance inspires love, so it is not limited to essential. True love does not calculate carefully what is the minimum of generosity. The man does not ask. What he can afford to not seriously offend his wife in certain things. If he wants to keep his love alive and live more strongly, he avoids everything that could degenerate in selfishness and anything that could cool his warm love. The death of human love did not cause the last step, but all the previous small steps that were the beginning of self-love. Thus, even in his love for God, one must carefully protect anything that might blunt her blade. He will not ask if anything is allowed by the commandments and whether it is without sin. But he would try to see if his renunciation would help him to experience the love of God more deeply. And whenever he can do without something he might inevitably have and intend to keep the freshness of his love for Christ carefully, then his tender love will grow. Love goes beyond logic – or rather, love is more logical than mere reason. “We can have all possible reasonable reasons not to do anything, and yet it would be nicer to do that …I have all possible excuses to do something dangerous, but I know in my heart that it was better to stop it. ” 8 Life in closer union with Christ is a life of greater self-denial. This must also be understood as the law of love. to give more, you have to give up more. The more you give, the more you renounce. A religious or priest is giving up many things, sacrificing many, but it is useful to remember that the word “sacrificial” (sacrifice) comes from the words “sacrum face re”, to sanctify something by giving it to God, the word has become primarily a sign for renouncing something, but if we experience what we give to God, especially as a renunciation, we will not experience it fully humanly. That which is given to God must be considered a gift of joy and love, but sometimes we will feel that we are giving up something. But if someone lives constantly with the thought of what he has forsaken, he is not a real victim and is doomed to be a very mournful thing that will result in a faint existence. Whoever has given God more will find in the demands of duty, obedience, and fraternal love (9) a continual “material” for self-sacrifice or a continual means of generously giving himself to God’s love. “I suffer now for you, but I rejoice in it, because by this I am supplementing in my body what remains to suffer to the full extent of Christ’s suffering. It benefits his body, it is the Church” (Col 1:24 ). We do not need to find a complete rational explanation for everything that is sacrifice and suffering, because beyond what mere reason reaches we enter into the ransom mystery of Christ. In connection with it, we can sacrifice our sufferings for the redemption of the world, help our self-sacrifices to free others from sin and self-love, renounce their self, and give their renunciation as a gift to God.