You must love one another as I have loved you

 

 

모처럼 도심에서 형제들과 쉼의 시간을 갖는다(리 수사님과 안토신부님과 함께)

You must love one another as I have loved you

 

When my brother married, some years ago, he invited me to the wedding dinner. I was already in the Society of Jesus. He married a coworker of his the same office. Recently his pretty baby was born. My first time to see his baby. I thought that she looked like a doll. She had two small pink hands and legs. Moreover, she couldn’t open her eyes. When his wife handed the baby over to me, I was really confused what to do. Actually I had never held a baby in my arms, so I froze for a brief instant. She really looked like a doll made of ice.

              After this first meeting with my niece, I went back to my scholasticate. That night, the way in our community’s chapel, I suddenly recognized God loves us my brother loves his little daughter. After we had begun to eat dinner, she began to cry. My brother held the crying baby in his arms and tried to comfort the baby. I didn’t understand why he looked happy even though he didn’t eat anything; he took care of his baby all through dinner, even forgetting his own dinner.

In my prayer, I felt my brother’s feelings of fatherhood. In the future, he will take care of his daughter. If his little girl gets ill, he will feel worse than his daughter. If his little girl is hungry, he will also be hungry. When she grows up and falls in love with a good man, my brother also feels the love like her. And then when she breaks up with the man, and feels deep sorrow, her father, my brother, will also cry for her broken heart. That’s the fatherhood I felt.

At the same time, I recognized that our God also feels for us like my brother for his little daughter. God, my father, suffers when I get ill. If I am in trouble, God, who is my father, is in the same place. If I fall in love with a beautiful woman, God who is my father is happy for his son. And then if I break up with her and cry in my room, God who is my father also cries for me. That’s the fatherhood I recognized.

After recognizing this, I sometimes get the same feelings. For example, I feel the wish to become a father and to know a father’s feelings well. Moreover, sometimes I think that I can die for my lovely niece though not for my brother or others.    

According to today’s Gospel, God who is our father said, “You must love one another as I have loved you.”  It’s important that God has loved us like our father and we know well that God who is his son has died and now lives with us.

 

그리고 보니 수사님도....