How Self-sacrificing Is Your Love for God and Others?

     At a daily Mass this week, the priest posed an interesting question I was able to answer immediately. He pointed at Christ hanging on the Cross and asked if our love for God and others was that self-sacrificing. My first thought was: No, but I’d like it to be. Fr. Wayne Ball ventured to guess that no one present gives love that is as self-sacrificing as Christ’s. Admitting he could really only speak for himself, Fr. Ball said that for him the grace he receives from the Eucharist is necessary for him to even try and give such love.
     I’d have to agree the same is true for me. If it weren’t for God’s forgiveness and mercy made manifest through Christ’s Passion and the gift of His very Body and Blood for our sins, then I’m certain I wouldn’t even have the grace to try and overcome my self-centeredness and lay my life before the Lord to use as He wills.
     Though there have been times when I’ve become despondent when I see how far short I fall of being Christ-like to others, I have hope because God has planted in me a desire to love as unconditionally as He does, and what’s more, that’s how He loves me, how He loves each of us. The better I become at submitting to God’s will, being obedient to His love, the more freely His love and mercy can work in and through me to reach others.
     Lord, thank You for loving us so much You gave us Your own Beloved Son to show us how to live, how to love, and how to sacrifice our mind, body, and spirit to glorify You.