Love is Our Vocation

We are all called to love. Whether we are students, businessmen, 5 years old, 90 years old, priests, parents, or bachelors, we are all called to love.

Last week I heard an idea that I have been thinking about since (is that a good excuse not to have blogged in a week?) This is the idea of transferring sin. Let us imagine an instance where a manager of a company is driving to work in the morning and gets cut off by another driver and swerves to the shoulder of the road. She is alright, but when she gets to the office, she is steaming with anger. She swears at the janitor as she walks to her office. He already missed breakfast and is now in a rotten mood. He does his work grudgingly and at the end of the day, when another man at the office approaches him about a minor issue, he gets in a big argument and this other man goes home and takes his anger out by kicking the dog. Sin is transferred from person to person until the dog absorbs it.

The wonderful thing people need to be reminded about is that Jesus already suffered for our sins. What we need to do is let Him absorb sin today. If any one of those people in the story had said, "Sin stops here," everyone else would have been saved from it. Does this mean we need to suffer these sins for everyone else? Sort of, but we already suffer from the sin when our boss yells at us in anger. All we need to do after that is completely let go of the pain, offering it to Jesus on the cross so that HE can absorb it. There is no need to give it to someone else. We are called to love, and Jesus suffered so that we could be free to do so.

But isn't there a time when we should stand up for ourselves? At first I thought there must be, we cannot let people walk over us all the time, but this is faulty. Imagine you get blamed for things at the office all the time - you are about to lose your job - should you say something to your boss, or just continue suffering from the sin and offering it to Christ? You should contiue suffering, with faith that Christ will bring a good out of it. Two possibilies come to mind right away: one thing that may happen is the person dishing out the pain starts wondering how you are able to take all this, and still be patient and kind to them. You are still sharing the extra dessert from your lunch with the person who might cost you your job. Another possibility is that you do get fired, but end up somewhere you are more happy. Whatever the case, you should always pray for the people causing you pain.

Love with patience and kindness, quietly suffer the sin inflicted on you, and offer the sin to Christ who loves you and already suffered for you!

Sacred heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!