Loving and Hurting

I attended the mass yesterday. The homily tackled loving and hurting. The priest explained it well. These are the highlights.

The priest said that a priest defined loving, in Tagalog, pagmaMAHAL as the opposite of pagMURA. He said that when you love, you elevate that person. Its opposite pagMURA is having lower regard for that person. Just like loving God, you elevate Him even higher. However, we cannot elevate God anymore because He is above all things. In His greatness, He meets us midway so we can know Him and love Him more.

Translating this to love among and between humans, when we love a person, we elevate that person, we put him in high regard, minaMAHAL. When we start devaluing that person, one of the expressions could be pagmuMURA, literally cursing. As a result, the devalued person is hurt.

The priest also said that yesterday's Gospel is a contradiction, quoting, "Now, I give you a new commandment: love one another just as I have loved you, you also must love one another." (John 13:34) It is a contradiction because Jesus commanded that we perform something that comes out naturally. For example, adults command a child to eat heartily so that the child will be healthy. In the same way that adults command an obese child to eat less for the same reason, to be healthy. When we were still in school, our parents commanded that we study well. We all know how hard following that commandment could be. So why should we be commanded to love when we do it automatically?

Jesus commands that we love one another because though it is a MUST, it is hard to do, just like proper eating and studying well. When we exert that much effort in loving, we are hurt when we people do not respond well to our actions, hence the extra effort to follow His commandment.