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“This my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12
The scene opens. A middle-aged couple is sitting in their favorite chairs, indulging in a piece of frosted white cake and ice cream. Their manner is one of delight, nostalgia, and exhaustion. All around them are remnants of a family celebration—leftover cake, wrapping paper, ribbons, and gifts of silver. The wife looks at the pictures on the mantel, pictures of her husband and herself on their wedding day twenty-five years ago.
She: Wasn’t it wonderful of Jayne to dig up those pictures for us. (looking at him) You know … you still make my heart flip.
He: (with a smile) It was nice of the kids to do all they did. Remember all the times we worried that they would never grow up?
She: But they have, and they are so sensitive and beautiful. That has made it all worthwhile.
He: You’ve made it all worthwhile.
She: I still remember how I felt at the moment that picture was taken. I knew you would always be at my side no matter what happened. And you have been.
He: That’s been mutual … This morning I was looking at Bob and Laura with their children. They really do have a handful! And Bob—he isn’t all that secure in his job. It brought to mind the years you and I faced that same thing. I really worried about money, but you were such a good manager.
She: I was thinking about those years, too. It was hard when the babies were small and dragging on me all the time. But you always seemed to understand and did what you could to relieve me. I still remember the times when we would go away for the weekend, just the two of us.
He: (laughing) We probably only did that once.
She: (serious) Yes, but I remember … and the times, too, when you were tired and would have preferred to stay home and watch television, yet we went out because you saw I needed to get away for a bit.
He: The hardest time for me was when I thought I was going to lose you. There isn’t a day I don’t thank God that they got it all.
She: (tears in her eyes) I was so scared! I don’t know what I would have done without you then. I felt as if I had lost something of myself when they took my breast. But you’ve always made me feel whole and beautiful.
He: You are beautiful.
What we overhear in the dialogue is a tender remembrance of moments that have made up the fabric of love that has been faithful, caring, and shared.
Each of the moments was rooted in a basic, steadfast faithfulness. The couple had complete trust that they would always be there for each other. They remembered the long moments of deep concern for each other and for their children, which had required a sacrifice of their own self-interest. There was also the memory of those closest moments in which they, in a mysterious oneness, had shared even the pain of the other.
This threefold loving response—faithfulness, selfless concern, and union with the loved one—is what St. Ignatius speaks of as the authentic human and humble response to Christ’s faithful, caring, shared love of us.
We are invited to love as he has loved us.
Suggested Approach to Prayer: With Christ
Daily prayer pattern: I quiet myself and relax in the presence of God and I declare my dependency on God.
Grace: I ask to know Jesus more intimately, to love him more deeply, and to follow him more closely.
Method: Meditation. Using the following prayer, I consider my loving response to Christ—what it is and what I would desire it to be.
Lord Jesus, I pray that your faithfulness may be my own. I beg that I may never deliberately break the bond of friendship that unites me with you and that I may always be faithful to those persons in my life to whom I am committed.
Lord Jesus, I pray that my loving concern and care of others will be an extension of your own. May my own desire be to please you and to be true to God’s particular intent for me. Free me that I may grow in self-forgetfulness and may always respond in fullness of love.
Lord Jesus, I pray that I may be so formed in the pattern of your self-emptying love that I will embrace unhesitatingly any sufferings, poverty, and insults, trusting that in them I may experience union with you. Enable me to let go of any fear that would serve as an obstacle to this total surrender of self in loving response.
Lord Jesus, Risen, Empowered with your humility, may my thoughts, my words, my actions serve to contribute to the joyful birth of your presence in our world.
Closing: I ask Mary to intercede for me that I would receive the gift of total dependency on God. I ask that I would be so detached from all things that I would put all my talents, possessions, and achievements at the service of Christ. I pray to follow in the pattern of Christ’s life—even to the end. Providing it would not be sinful on anyone’s part, I pray that if it is God’s wish for me, I would have, like Christ, the courage and strength to endure poverty and/or personal humiliation.
I pray the Hail Mary.
In the company of Mary, I approach Jesus and offer the same prayer, that he would obtain these graces for me from my Creator.
In the presence of Jesus and Mary, and offered by them, I approach God my Creator. Again I make the same request.
I pray the Our Father.
Review of Prayer:
In my journal, I record whatever feelings, experiences, or insights surfaced during the time of prayer.
An excerpt from the book Birth: A Guide to Prayer.