Miracle of Mutual Love

God bless all the beautiful priests giving so generously of their presence and love for their sheep virtually through these times!

Last week, my friend sent me an excellent homily on the Sacred Heart feast. The gentle priest began to ponder aloud what makes something sacred. He proposed that something becomes sacred to us when it is mutual. Mutual love. A mother and daughter hugging squeezing one another with love. Two friends arm in arm, chatting with carefree joy. A clerk offering generous service and a customer reciprocating with gratitude and a smile. Spouses embracing after a long day, resting in one another’s secure love. Mutual love.

This is so very touching to me. One of those resonating heart moments – when everything congeals in peace and joy, when everything in me says YES! Mutual love, yes. It really is a Grace. A miracle! Is total mutuality not the fullness of love?

In his summa on Theology of the Body, St. John Paul the Great expresses: “Man becomes an image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion.”

Thrill! Is this not what we long for? True communion of persons, the beauty of unity! Family love, friendship love, eros, a sense of belonging together, holding one another. Mutual equal investment. In this communion we most image God, Who is Communion. God is mutual love, fully given and fully received. An everlasting swirling lifting dance of fully reciprocated love, no holds barred. No fear, no withholding, no barriers or walls, no defenses or self preservation. Complete givenness in loving, and openness in receiving, until the giving is receiving and the receiving is giving. As St. John Paul II says, “…giving and accepting the gift interpenetrate in such a way that the very act of giving becomes acceptance and acceptance transforms itself into giving.” Woah. Awesome. Yes.

I’ve often meditated on marriage as miracle –a man and a woman falling in love mutually, both of them with one another! Not the common heartbreaking experience of unrequited love, not unequal or imbalanced forms of love; but the glorious harmony of mutual love, mutual longing and passionate desire! This is such beauty! Do we not long for this? To be so madly in love with another and that same one is madly in love with us! What a dream come true. To be swept up in the dance of mutual love together forever. Sounds like Heaven to me. Sounds like the miracle of mutual love. Sounds sacred. Sounds like the romance of the Sacred Heart.

Jesus, thank You for loving us madly! Mother Mary, help us to fall madly in love with your Son and return love for love, as Grace fills us.

It is always rightfully humbling in our relationship with God because we cannot love Him apart from Him. The very love we return to Him is His Love He’s shared with us.

And if we look deeper, of course we cannot love anyone apart from God. The true love we share with another is always a sharing of God’s love. We are His irreplaceable instruments of love, uniquely manifested and expressed through our intricate beings. “I am the vine, you are the branches… Without me you can do nothing… Remain in my love.” (John 15) “Love consists in this: it is not we who loved God, but God loved us… God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him… Let us love then, because He first loved us…” (1 John: 4)

So let us abide in His Sacred Heart, our dwelling, our refuge, and the source of all our love, received and given. Mutual love is sacred because it flows from one source: the Sacred Heart of Jesus… even the love we return to His Heart flows from this infinite fountain.

Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus, You are everlasting mutual love. Mary, help us to open wide to this sacred mutual love, sharing in this greatest gift together. The true love we long for. Our dream come true. We give our total yes to mutual love, oh Sacred Heart of our hearts. Queen of all hearts, pray for us!

Copyright 2020, Marian Veilleux