This week’s connecting point reminded me of a song from the 80’s by Pat Benatar, “Love is a Battlefield.” The song sounds like just another pop rocky heartbreak song, but it actually delivers the message that Love can be difficult for us, so much so that it feels like a battle within us. Jesus knew all too well about this battle in our Gospel reading. It begins with Judas leaving him and the disciples to betray Jesus. What a heartbreak for Jesus! Yet he follows up with his greatest commandment to love one another as he loved us.
Even during our personal struggles, real love means costing each one of us. It means listening when we are tired, it means enduring another person’s pain when we are carrying our own, it means forgiving even when we feel bitter and choosing mercy over revenge. Oh, the battle that rages on in each of us! We cannot do it alone. Only through the grace of our Lord can we endure. Not conquer but endure. Paul and Barnabas in our first reading fought through hardships, persecution and rejection. Yet they kept going. They knew that real love requires endurance to finish the race on our journey to the Kingdom of Heaven. So how can you and I make it easier?
We need people to walk with us, encourage and pray with us in times of trouble. We need each other through relationship break ups, betrayals, and rejections. We need to lean deeper into God’s grace even when it costs us something. We draw our strength from the living Jesus in us. That is our path through the battlefield. That is what our community is all about. Love is not just a feeling we have; it is our witness to Jesus.
His love fills what is empty in our hearts so that we can pour out his love to others. Jesus does not want us to become discouraged when love may fail or is difficult, but instead he asks us to become living signs of his love. Our world seems bent on revenge, division, and fear. However, we can stand up in faith and love, powered by our Lord’s sacrifice, for a world that desperately needs it. As Pat Benatar sings, heartache to heartache, we stand!
