The great C.S. Lewis once stated "Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbour; act as if you did." [in Mere Christianity, Chapter 9]. Shortly after, he explains that if you do this, you find out the great secret of love: if you pretend to love someone, or act as if you actually love them, you'll eventually start to actually love them.
When I was reading this the other day, I was struck by how profound and yet simple this was. We spend so much time in our world trying to figure out what love really means; how we do it, what it really looks like, what it actually is, etc. Why? It doesn't matter. We are called to love. Period. End of story. Not to love when it feels good, not to love when it's easy, but simply to love.
Then, I went to mass today and heard the words of Christ in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 8, Verse 18, where He says: "for to him who has more will be given..." While this verse can surely speak about multiple things, it seems to speak quite directly to this fact that C.S. Lewis was trying to get at, which Mother Theresa explains by saying that she had found a great paradox, which is that "if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only love." At mass, then, my pastor explained this same thing from the Gospel: the more you love, the more love you have to give. [for to him who has more will be given]. It's not something that runs out; our vocation as Christians [or, probably more appropriately, as human beings] is to love, and so we can never love too much.
We can love in the wrong way [see: modern culture] by being self-centered with our "love", but we can not possibly love too much. Often in today's world it seems that love is a feeling which could be substituted for passion; love is something we feel, and we act in response to this feeling of love overtaking us. Love for our neighbour [that is: everyone], however, should have nothing to do with a feeling. As the 1st Century philosopher Seneca [who may or may not have looked like that guy below] said: "wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness." As 2Thessalonians points out, we are never to "be weary in well-doing;" simply put, we should love those we encounter.
I have previously remarked on the importance of love here, but now I have been given a new challenge: to love someone, whether or not I love them. In fact, the challenge here is to love them specifically when I don't really feel any sort of love for them, or at least to stop caring whether I love them, and just start loving. Love is a decision, not a feeling.
