Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. I John 4:8

• 

God is the embodiment of love. God is not just loving but the essence of love. We can know a lot about God, we may spend a lot of time learning about God, but this will not result in us being more loving.

To know God is to have a relationship where we are receptive to what God wants to give us. God wants to give us love, which if we receive it we are changed, and love will flow out to others. St. Bernard of Clairvaux once said, “ What we love we grow to resemble.” Our goal is to be striving to be the embodiment of love also.

It breaks my heart to see so many people who publicly claim to be followers of God who clearly are not living the out flowing of love that marks a believer. Our current crises of a pandemic and political unrest is an opportunity that many of us are missing show the love of God in a frightened and violent world.

Of course, this heartbreak can begin with myself. If I focus on my fear or my pain at the unnecessary suffering all around me, I can easily look away from the Love that embraces me every moment. Daily I must remember my focus and my identity as a Lover of God and others. It’s easier to be angry and blame someone for the suffering than to feel it. It often feels like it hurts too much to love.

With fires scorching the earth, storms tearing homes and cities apart, disease sickening and killing millions of earth’s citizens and incessant violence, it’s easy to turn off love to preserve ourselves from the pain that love sometimes requires us to suffer. But in doing so, it’s easy to harden our hearts to love as well as pain. When empathy dies, so does civility.

Part of the mystery of suffering is that if we share it with God, together we can tolerate it and even grow in understanding and wisdom. Love bears all things. It is the mark of the true believer, and is the visible evidence of being rooted and established in the love of God.