Live and Love to the Maximum

It’s easy to drift into mediocrity. Sometimes day-to-day life lulls us into a sort of a sleep in which we forget what’s important, why we’re alive. We can feel like Dorothy in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” She can see her goal, the brilliant Emerald City, in the distance. But the seemingly innocuous field of poppies makes her so drowsy she can't go on.

We don’t have a good witch or a scarecrow, tin man or lion to help us get unstuck. We have something better: God and our own traveling companions, the saints. We have those in the making here on earth and those who have gone before us to Heaven. And from time to time, they help rouse us.

I recently was introduced to one such saint, Servant of God Guglielmo Giaquinta, a bishop and founder of the Pro Sanctity Movement, who teaches ordinary people how to be holy, to live and love to the maximum. His message might seem like Catholicism 101, but for me it’s been a spiritual wake up call.

The following passage, from his “Gospel of Maximum Love,” was borrowed from the Pro Sanctity website:

• “Jesus came to bring the message of maximum love;
• We have a Father in heaven who loves us infinitely, watches over us unceasingly, and has sent his only Son, having him accept death for our salvation;
• Jesus, the Word of God, has come among us to bring the message of the Father, to make us one with himself as branches of a vine, showing us concretely how we must live, and He died to merit for us the strength to do this and to draw us to Himself with the example of His infinite love;
• We must correspond with all our strength, that is, to the maximum, to this love of the Father and of Jesus, accepting and actuating the message received;
• Love among ourselves as Jesus loved us, that is, to the point of heroism unto death, is a duty that Jesus has left us as his last will and testament;
• This unity and fraternal love must find a particular expression in our faithful participation in the life of the Church centered on the Eucharist, animated by the Spirit and the presence of Mary, and based on Peter and the Apostles.”

Don’t settle for a life that’s anything less. Let’s love to the maximum.

Inspired by the Year of Faith, Susan Szalewski began writing weekly columns for us. Although that year is over, we liked them so well that we asked her to keep writing. Thankfully, she said yes. So watch for these on Thursdays and see the Year of Faith Blog here.