Making Love Visible

To love is to think, speak and act according to spiritual knowledge

That we are infinitely loved by God and that we are called to make

That love visible in the world.

Henri Nouwen

Cited in Meditations for the New Age

Brother Teasdale gives us a wider and deeper look into these words:

“Again we explore the notion of reciprocal love with the Divine with this quote from Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest, psychologist, and spiritual writer. That the Divine’s love for us is the basis of our love in practice is an essential insight of the Christian tradition.

The utter primacy of love is a guiding absolute of Christian motivation, attitudes, thoughts, speech, and actions. It is the ultimate love that inspires, energizes, and shapes the cosmos, nature, and the human family.

To experience the divine in its deepest sense is to experience the love it has for us. And to know this love gives us the capacity to love God in return, as well as to love others. Again, it is the Source. As we imbibe Divine Love, as we evolve in its depth and transforming urgency, it increases our ability to love in all aspects of our lives.”

“To make love visible” is Nouwen’s phrase that sums up all that Br. Teasdale describes and teaches, and in truth, it is the root cause and purpose of Christian way of life. To make love visible combines the best relational and deepest most intimate goal of the mystic with the noble intentions and purposes of the prophet.

Both sides of the Christian witness seek earnestly to incorporate love into each thought and action. Each of these central focuses of the Christian life see love as the most genuine, and as the most real, expression of what it means to be a Christian; to emulate the Way of Love as being within us, and among us.

As lofty and as grand as the goal of making love visible, no one who has chosen it as a path has found it easy, facile, or to be without daunting challenges. As the Scriptures put it, “the way is narrow…” There are daily obstacles and lifelong barriers to work through and to overcome.

Life in contemporary society often adds up to be a deficit or a detour, maybe even in places unsurmountable, because of the deceit and despair it can encourage in its very structures.

And yet… I am heartened, even after disappointments pile up, that the love of God is inexhaustible and always available. We are able to love,” because God first loved us” as the Gospel of John proclaims, and remembering that and counting on that, is essential to my life.