From the Gospel of John: "Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love." [1] Also, "God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him." [2] "In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him." [3] And this too: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love." [4]
Few are perfect in love. According to the Gospel above, those who are perfect in love do not fear death. Those who are ready for and welcome death speak the language of love. Just saying that one does not fear death is not enough, for when faced with death and given the choice between life and death, life is usually the preferred choice. When death is knocking at one's door and is not going away, it can be scary.
Those who voluntarily choose death by own their will over life dislike life. They do not know God and do not know love, yet they are the ones who have much to fear, not so much this life which is temporary but in the life after which is eternal. When the Apostle John spoke of God and that God is love, he was speaking to the living, not the dead. To know love is to know God and the time to know and love God is during one's lifetime.
The Gospel does not offer any practical advice how to love those who are difficult to love. Ideally, one can love like Christ Who loved every sinner even though no sinner is easy to love. Perhaps it is sufficient to love those difficult to love from a distance by praying for them just as one is able to love God from a distance by prayer and supplication, or not? Perhaps one just need to do one's best, even though one's best falls far short of God's expectations. Perhaps with daily prayer, one can receive the grace to learn to love ever so gradually the way God loves.
To know how deeply one must love one has to imagine the depth of God's love for each and every sinner. Repeating the quote from the Gospel of John: "In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him." [5] Can any one imagine sending one's only beloved son to suffer and be crucified for the sake of sinners in order that reparation of Eve and Adam's Sin can be effective against Satan? Probably it is difficult to imagine since it is difficult to know the depth and the pains of God's unrequited love.
Perhaps God's love has no perfect equivalent on earth, but perhaps certain moments of love can come close. Life's vicissitudes can sometimes bring deep pain, and from the depths of sorrow love that is close to God's love may be experienced, and it is also this love that can ease the deep sorrow that is born of out of love. This is a love that is alive in the very young all the way to the very old. The love that aches with this kind of suffering is not foreign to the Son of God Who was betrayed by one of His own, Who had to watch His Mother suffer as He was suffering, nor is this aching love foreign to the Mother of God Who had to suffer Her seven sorrows. [6] Those who felt similar have no need for words; for those who have not, words are meaningless.
[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/1john/4, 8.
[2] Ibid., 16.
[3] Ibid., 9.
[4] Ibid., 18.
[5] Ibid., 9.
[6] https://www.olrl.org/pray/msorrows.shtml
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