Anatomy of a Saint

Life can be so hard.  God is so Good.

God is Love. Be Love. That’s is all you need to know. Just be Love, be kind, be forgiving, be selfless, be humble, be sacrificial. Just Be Love. That is all you need to know or is it? Life would be amazing if everyone did everything out of Love. If we loved our neighbor as we love ourselves. If we cared about one another more than we cared about ourselves. Just imagine the world, humanity could be if we could just Love one another. Relationships would be joyful, happy, and full of giving. No conflicts, no jealousy, no selfishness, no self serving attitudes, just Love. Bliss. But how can we? We have different personalities, likes, dislikes, weaknesses, moralities and different views of how the world is and how the world should be. This Love could not exist on the surface as a shallow love, it would be inauthentic. Although, you can Love and will to Love on a deeper supernatural level.

If you don’t believe in God, do you believe in Love? Is Love just a chemical reaction between neurons…. If we are just chemicals and chemical reactions, we are wired for Love, for Good, for Happiness, for Joy and for Peace. We know what makes us feel bad and what makes us feel good. So there is good and bad built into our nature and our world.

So why is the world as it is, in such turmoil and so divided? Why are we, humanity, personally conflicted, in turmoil, and broken? As we grow from infant to adulthood we all have different realities, different experiences, different highs and different lows. No one escapes the hardships of life. Some have it worse than others. Some of our hardships pale in comparison to others, but they are ours. Comparison can move us to appreciation for our reality compared to others and move us to compassion for others.

So why families? Why would God model the perfect Holy Family for us and expect us to be able to live up to that? We are set up for failure. We are human and all the something something that encapsulates. We are born selfish, and self serving beings. As infants we demand, sometimes relentlessly, our mothers and fathers (or caretaker) to care for us in self sacrificial ways. Love is not only demanded, love is need to survive and thrive. Studies show neglected children don’t thrive and don’t develop a sense of empathy.