What is sanctifying Human love, simply, love your neighbour as you love God. I f we say we love God, we have to love our neighbour because that neighbour is the God that we see. We cannot claim to love God when we hate our neighbour, we pretend as if that neighbour does not exist.
Another way of sanctifying human love is offering your pain or challenge you encounter in the course of serving God or sacrificing your last food for a friend or neighbour.( a friend of mine who after going through the bad road in her place in other to attend a 7 am Mass, only for her find out that , the Mass was for 9am) , what a sacrifice for love of God. Also the case of the widow in the bible who used the last flour and wheat she wanted to bake bread for herself and her daughter to serve a visitor) This buttresses the saying in the bible that, “ whatsoever you do to the least of your brother , that you do to unto me”
Another way of sanctifying human love is by forgiving your neighbour, friend, or colleague at your work place who has cooked up lies against you in the office that caused you a lot of pain and even demotion. How do you forgive somebody like that, it can only be by the grace of God and love. Sometimes we have to struggle to forgive these people who have offended us so much because, God Himself forgave us first and He is still forgiving us all our numerous sins. Why not us?
We can also sanctify human love by being charitable, sacrificing the most valuable thing in your life just so to safe a friend or neighbour. Giving your time, offering a listening ear to someone who is heavy hearted. Remember, charity and love go hand in hand.
Communication:
Another thing is how we communicate. Often times we find the highly placed, dishing out orders to the less privileged but at the 50th World Communication Day, Pope Francis said and l quote “How I wish that our own way of communicating may never suggest a prideful and triumphant superiority over an enemy.”
Communication has the power to build bridges, to enable encounter and inclusion, and thus to enrich society. How beautiful it is when people select their words and actions with care, in the effort to avoid misunderstandings, to heal wounded memories and to build peace and harmony. Words can build bridges between individuals and within families, social groups and peoples. This is possible both in the material world and the digital world.
Our words and actions should be such as to help us all escape the vicious circles of condemnation and vengeance which continue to ensnare individuals and nations, encouraging expressions of hatred. The words of Christians ought to be a constant encouragement to communion and, even in those cases where they must firmly condem evil, they should never try to rupture relationships.
Communicating means sharing and sharing demands ,listening and acceptance. Listening is much more than simply hearing. Hearing is about receiving information, while listening is about communication, and calls for closeness. Listening allows us to get things right, and not simply to be passive onlookers, users or consumers.
Communication, wherever and however it takes place, has opened up broader horizons for many people. This is a gift of God which involves a great responsibility. I like to refer to this power of communication as “closeness”
Learning To Love
As human beings we are designed to form bonds with each other with love, but according to Pope Benedict, the term love has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we attach quite different meanings, but we are commanded by God to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbour as our self. Love too often is limited to romantic attraction, or a mutual attraction, but this is a very shallow understanding. To love is the most fundamental command that God has given us and our happiness depends on whether we learn to love.
Each day, we learn new way of how to love, how to see God’s presence in the challenges, the sufferings and monotony of everyday life, and how not to forget Him when we are blessed with material and emotional comforts. The bible tells us that for us to enter heaven, we have to be like little children and same goes for how we love. For us to love, we sometimes have to be like that little child whose heart is pure as that of a saint, who bears no grudge against anybody. They have open mind and so we are commanded to learn to love like a little child.
If you watch most little children, you will see that they are natural-born relationship seekers. On the playground, they will spot other children, rush up to them, stare them in the eyes, maybe even take their hands, and begin to play together. If they’re very small, they’ll just sit near each other, playing separately in the sand, separate but together.
Our happiness depends on whether we learn to love. ‘Man cannot live without love. His life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it, he can never be happy.
True love then, requires sacrifice. We are called to love as Jesus loves us, giving his life for our good and even now, in the language of the Eucharist, giving himself to us utterly. ‘Love of God and love of neighbour are … inseparable, they form a single commandment. Both live from the love of God who has loved us first.
True love unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life.
Without love, truth becomes cold, impersonal and oppressive for people’s day-to-day lives … One who loves realizes that love is an experience of truth, that it opens our eyes to see reality in a new way, in union with the beloved.
Generosity
The bible tells us that, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously”. It commands us to give what we have decided in our heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful give – 2 Corinthians 9:6-8
Generosity is the virtue of being liberal in giving. It is a quality that’s a lot like being unselfish. Someone showing generosity is happy to give time, money, food, or kindness to people in need. Generosity is a self- giving act that involves a lot of sacrifice which in effect brings you joy, love and union with God.( Furrow) Generosity is the quality of being kind and generous.
Being generous is not an easy act, sometimes it is a struggle for people to let go from t their abundance but with the help of God, through prayer, they become generous .If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
This applies to being generous in whatever you do. “Be convinced of this: your apostolate consists in spreading goodness, light, enthusiasm, generosity, a spirit of sacrifice, constancy in work, deep study, complete self-surrender, being up-to-date, cheerful and complete obedience to the Church, and perfect charity. Nobody can give what he does not have. (Furrow, 927)
Believe me, the apostolate of giving doctrine usually has to be, as it were, vessel used to spreading from one to another, from each believer to his immediate companion. (Furrow, 943)
Generosity is all about unlimited self-giving. The Blessed Virgin Mary, is the teacher of unlimited self-giving. Do you remember? It was in praise of her that Jesus Christ said: “Whoever fulfils the Will of my Father, he — she — is my mother! …” Let us ask of this good Mother that her answer, with the generosity it shows, may grow stronger in our soul — with the strength of love and liberation.(Furrow, 33)
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