A Reflection on Love
by Kathy Pluth

Love is the act of willed sight. Love acknowledges realities hidden beneath the cloak of appearance: the good in the apparently evil, the beautiful in the apparently worthless, a friend in the apparent enemy. Love is a decision to accept the shining and good, but hidden, reality of the other. Goodness is part of everyone and everything that is. The lover knows this, accepts it, and acts upon it.

The Eucharist tells of this love in two ways, which can be considered according to their directionality. First, God loves us. "Love consists in this: not that we have loved God but God has loved us." In the sacrifice and presence of God in Christ in the Eucharist we are given the primary example of loving what is hidden. Human worth has been obscured by sin, yet God acknowledges the hidden good in us. "It is precisely in this that God shows his love for us, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us ." In the intimate union of God with humanity in the Incarnation, we feel our true worth, which is not what we have made ourselves to be, but what God plans to make us. In the Eucharist, God expresses and effects a transformation which will show forth the holiness which we have hidden under our sinfulness. Second, in the Eucharist we are given an opportunity to love the hidden God: “Truly with thee God is hidden, the God of Israel, the savior.” In this life, we can be distracted by an image of a harsh God because of the presence of evil. In the meek Christ, who took upon himself our yoke of sinfulness, bore our griefs and offenses, and suffered in our place, God has revealed the truth about his love for us. In the Eucharist, this same Christ becomes even more gentle and humble. As St. Thomas Aquinas' hymn sings:

We adore you, O hidden God…
On the Cross, only your Godhead was hidden.
But in this figure, your humanity is hidden as well.

Revelation is obscured, first by the humanity of Jesus Christ, born of a woman, born under the law, then by the plainness of bread. But when we love the Eucharist, we love the whole mysterious One the bread has become. This love of God is love in itself, and also a building up of love so that within the Church we can love what is hidden in one another.

What is hidden in us is the fact that we are children of God and made in the image of his Son, both collectively and personally. We ourselves have obscured this reality by our own sin. God is so aware of this reality that he was willing to die in the person of his son in service of this truth. God has, so to speak, infinite trust in our own worth and in his fidelity. We are irrevocably children of God; this is our hidden reality . God restores us to this reality by our participation in the sacramental life. In Baptism we are reborn as children of God. In Reconciliation we are continually restored to our participation in the Sonship of Jesus Christ. In the Eucharist we are formed into the image of his body and are brought forward in holiness, even into the great glorious holiness of heaven.

Kathy Pluth is a Liturgical Coordinator and DRE and a good friend. Other reflections from Kathy Pluth can be found here