Love of God/Kerygma Start

I said last week that the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, is ultimately a story about the love of God. And not just any love, but “the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God” (to take one worship song as our guide). So, the first thing we must do is understand what love is. Love is not the same as desire, or fondness, or any other feeling—love often is connected with or inspired by feelings, but it is not, in itself, a feeling. The Catholic Church teaches that to love is an act of will, and specifically, to will the good of that object of love. In this sense, it’s impossible to love ice cream because there is no “good” of ice cream. One can only desire or appreciate ice cream. It is possible to desire or appreciate our fellow human beings, but without an eye to their good, such desires become a way of objectifying others for our benefit or enjoyment. To treat human beings the way they are meant to be treated, we must value them for their own sake.
 
But as any parent knows, to will the good of someone is not the same thing as to fulfill all his desires. We have so many misunderstandings (there have always been misunderstandings) about what a person’s good consists of, but it is most certainly not the mere fulfillment of desire. Rather, we find our good, the good of humanity, in becoming and being who we were created to be. And we were created to be beings in the image and likeness of God, beings who love as He loves. Throughout the next few months, we will be talking specifically about how God loves, how He loves us specifically and individually, and how we are called to participate in that love. It is through embodying this love that we become true children of God, modeling our behavior after our Heavenly Father and taking His example as our own. What could give a Father more joy?
 
Challenge: Are we ever tempted to equate our desires with our good? Think of one place where you could start putting your ultimate good ahead of your basic appetites.