Leonard Doohan - The One Thing Necessary: The Transforming Power of Christian Love

Dedication

For Paula

THE ONE THING NECESSARY
THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF CHRISTIAN LOVE

by Leonard Doohan

Edited by Gregory F. Augustine Pierce

Cover design by Tom A. Wright

Cover art The Four Evangelists drawn by Rudolf Koch (1876-1934) from the book Christian Symbols (San Francisco: Arion Press, 1996).

Text design and typesetting by Patricia A. Lynch

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright 2012 by Leonard Doohan

Published by ACTA Publications, 4848 N. Clark Street, Chicago, IL 60640, (800) 397-2282, www.actapublications.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, including the Internet, without permission from the publisher. Permission is hereby given to use short excerpts or pieces of art with proper citation in reviews and marketing copy, church bulletins and handouts, and scholarly papers.

Library of Congress Catalogue Number: 2012944506

At a critical point in his life, Jesus gave to each of us an extraordinary challenge: A new commandment I give to you, that you also love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this allwill know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35). Nowadays, we live in a world that is filled with indifference, prejudice, and hatred, and Jesus hope that Christians would become a prophetical presence of transforming love is more needed than ever. Jesus has called each of us to believe in the power of love, and to let this love motivate us in all we do.

The first reason we believe in love is because each of us has personally experienced Gods love toward us. A faith-filled experience of Gods love changes our lives, showing us what God has done and continues to do for us and how we ought to respond by modeling our lives on Gods love. Living our faith in love is a spiritual journey of discovery, a pilgrimage in which each of us gains a deeper knowledge of Gods self-communication to us. It clarifies our relationship to God, the meaning of life, and what our own response to God ought to be. Spiritual writers frequently describe our spiritual journey as a journey of faith. However, the way of faith is simply a preparation for the way of love, and this book challenges all of us to focus our entire lives on the essential call to believe in the power of love.

We all yearn to know the meaning of life, our place in the universe, and the purpose of our existence. What we are really yearning for is love; for this alone satisfies our restlessness. We value love when we see it, we long for it when it is not present, we know it seems to manifest what is the best in us.

We need to acknowledge that love is the central experience that gives meaning to our lives. Why should this be so? I think we value love so much because God has made us this way. God is love and has placed a seed of divine life in each of us. The Trinity is a relationship of love that is dynamic and ever extending itself. Creation is a reaching out of a loving God to increase love through others. Creation is a project of love.

The early Christian disciples were overwhelmed by the emphasis on love in Jesus extraordinary teachings. They were convinced that love is the kernel of the Christian revelation. However, when we look at our contemporary world this central message of Christianity has never been more neededor more forgottenthan it is now. This is a time when we Christians can have a prophetical impact on our world by proclaiming the transformational power of love. By our lack of love we frequently turn the world into a kingdom of darkness, sin, and hate, which flows from a failure to love. Hardheartedness, prejudice, bigotry, and hatred are increasing everywhere, and those of us dedicated to God must take note less we lose the battle for the direction of this world. The hate-filled of this world are far better organized than we who seek a reign of love.

We Christians need to renew our commitment to the essentials of love. We must live our lives based on the decision to love and an asceticism that stresses love alone. Perhaps only a few of us will initially accept the challenge of this renewal of our faith in love, but the power of Christian love will percolate up through every level of community interaction until it affects the larger communal expressions of civic and ecclesial life. Our goal is to become channels of divine love. This is the only way to renew ourselves, our Church, and the world. This is our new destiny, and the only way we will find meaning in life.

Jesus told Martha that only one thing is necessary (see Luke 10:41-42). That one thing is love. This book is a call for us to leave aside the many secondary aspects of Christianity and focus our dedication on the single issue that is clearly more important than any otherand than all others put together.

If Christians are to be the leavening presence in the world for which Jesus hoped and prayed, then we must redirect all our lives to focus on the way of love. Let us direct our entire commitment on the call to love. Where needed, let us even revise our ideas on what it even means to be a Christian.

CONTENTS

I gave him intellect so that he could recognize and understand my will in the wisdom of my Son; for it is I who am the source of all graces, and I burn with a fathers love. I also gave him his will to love, letting him share in the love of the Holy Spirit so that he could love whatever his intellect had seen and recognized.

Catherine of Siena, On Divine Providence

Help us on this day of rest to see goodness in all your creatures; open our eyes and our hearts to your love in the world.

Psalter, Week 2, Sunday, Morning Prayer, Intercessions

Late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved you! For behold you were within me, and I outside; and I sought you outside and in my ugliness fell upon those lovely things that you have made. You were with me and I was not with you. I was kept from you by those things, yet had they not been in you, they would not have been at all. You called and cried to me and broke open my deafnessyou touched me, and I have burned for your peace.

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book 7

Love alone can unify living beings so as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of the people of the Earth.

Teilhard de Chardin, Meditation

FOCUS FOR THIS CHAPTER

We human beings are restless and unfulfilled until we rest in Gods love.

Savor the restlessness we often feel in our search for the meaning of our life.

Answer Jesus question, What are you looking for?

Think about our ordinary and extraordinary experiences of human love and what they tell us about Gods love for us.

Explore the spirituality of love.

Reflect on how we come to know God and what God wants for us.

When I attended high school, many years ago, the motto of the school was Sicut Cervus (as a deer). These are the first two words of Psalm 42, and they describe a Levites longing to experience God. These words, and the group of nine psalms (40-49) of which they are a part, present a wonderful image of a believers search for answers to the most important questions of lifes meaning, purpose, and end.