The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (1 John 3:16)

We hear so much today about love.  What is love, anyway? Some say it’s a feeling, an attraction, chemistry; others say it’s a choice. Certainly, love can be viewed in one of those ways, but what exactly is the real definition of love on which you want to build your passions, desires, feelings, attraction, or choices? "To love is to will the good of another." All other affections have their source in this first movement of the human heart toward the good. Only the good can be loved. Passions "are evil if love is evil and good if it is good." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1766) Love without the good of another is not a true love. The real challenge for all of us is not how much we love our friends, but how much we love our enemies. To love God is easy, to love your friends is also painless, except on a few occasions, to love your enemies is extremely difficult. To achieve this you must take love to the next level that is sacrificial love, to lay down your live for the one you love even though when they don’t deserve it. As someone said, “Love Ain't Easy...

"When we're young, we think that love is a great wonderful attraction between parents and kids. Love means we get things from those we love.

When we're young adults, we think that love may be some kind of gooey sexual attraction. Love means our constant urges must be satisfied.

When we're middle aged, we start to learn that love is all about self - sacrifice, and that includes a lot of times when the person we are self-sacrificing for could care less about our self-sacrifice for them.

When we are old, we learn that love is really about valuing the things of the next world infinitely more than the things of this world, and that heartfelt prayer to God is what love is all about..."

The tragedy of this world is that, so many are unloved or their love level is still remain at the early developmental stage and have not grown yet.

Let us love one another as Christ has loved us today.

Peace in Infant Jesus,

Father Vincent-Vuong Nguyen