Today is Oct. 6, the Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time.
“The Lord God said: ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him'” (Gn 2:18). In the readings for today’s Mass, we hear the beautiful story of the creation of Eve from the book of Genesis. (The October issue of Our Sunday Visitor magazine includes a beautiful in-depth study of the first chapter of Genesis.) For most of us, these verses are familiar and beloved. Part of the reason this is such a favorite story is that Genesis makes a fundamental and unavoidable claim about the nature of humanity: We were not made to be alone. We yearn for community, for friendship. In the depths of our hearts, we want to be known and loved!
Commenting on this passage, Pope St. John Paul II writes: “When (God) said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone,’ (Gn 2:18) he affirmed that ‘alone,’ man does not completely realize this essence. He realizes it only by existing ‘with someone’ — and even more deeply and completely — by existing ‘for someone.'” In plain language, the pope is saying that we live for God and love him in community; We need someone to live for!
Following Genesis, Pope St. John Paul II argues that human beings are made for selfless love. We are made to pour out our hearts, making our lives a gift. That’s what gives us peace.
C.S. Lewis recognizes the same. In his classic book “The Four Loves,” he writes, “We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.” It’s one of those great paradoxes of Christianity: the more we give ourselves and our hearts away, the more we find ourselves.
To put it in terms of the harvest, we will reap more the more we give. It seems contradictory, but we always receive back from God more than we offer to him. He pays the worker back a hundred times (Mk 4:8). In the end, we will find the happiness we long for when we give ourselves in love to others — and thereby to God himself.
A prayer for God’s mercy:
Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our lord Jesus Christ, your son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
My Daily Visitor spiritual reflections are a dose of daily Catholic inspiration from Our Sunday Visitor magazine.
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