A Greater Love

In one of my all-time favorite movies, Xavier Beauvois’ resplendent “Of Gods & Men” (Des hommes et des dieux), old Brother Luc has a conversation about love with Rabbia, one of the workers in the monastery. She asks him questions about love, including if he’s ever been in love. He responds, (in French, but I’ll use the subtitle),

“Yes, several times. And then I encountered another love, even greater.

And I answered that love. It’s been a while now. Over 60 years.”

What is this greater love old Brother Luc speaks about?

In 2006, while in the middle of a sad divorce, I had an interesting experience. First, one night, I had a vivid dream about my friend who recently married. In the dream, she emailed to me pictures of her wedding. No big deal….yet. That same day, I received a wedding invitation from another friend who was remarrying. Humh…ok, I see a little connection. Then finally, late that day I read Mrs. Cowman’s wonderful devotional “Springs in the Valley”, and et voile, another marriage reference. The topic verse was:

“Married to another, even to him.”  – Romans 7:4

Now that was interesting. At that time, I had hoped in the deepest recesses of my soul (yes, I hid that desire that deep) that I would find another, but knew, with many children yet to raise, that it was highly unlikely.  The verse and its subsequent devotional point to our spiritual union, our spiritual marriage with Christ. This is the greater love that Brother Luc spoke about.

A greater love, a love whose glimmer is so brilliant and magnificent that we cannot comprehend it. A love also that is so tender and gentle as illustrated in Luke’s “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” A love so peaceful that our Lord repeatedly told his disciples: “Be not afraid.” A love so pure that Paul dedicated an entire chapter to its sublimity:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

You realize these words were written almost two thousand years ago. This greater love through Christ has been available to all, to everyone for centuries.

And this greater love was never so raw and powerful as when Christ hung on the cross. Truly a love incomprehensible.

Most folks I know enjoy that romantic love that Valentine’s Day is known for. For those of us who weren’t blessed with that kind of relationship, there is a greater love we can answer to, like Brother Luc did many decades ago. A love just as fulfilling and joyful.

From that devotional:

Oh, sacred union with the Perfect Mind,
Transcendent bliss which Thou alone canst give;
How blest are they this Peerless One who find,
And, dead to earth, have learned in Thee to live.

Thus in Thine arms of love, O Christ, I live,
Lost, and forever lost to all but Thee.
My happy soul, since it hath learned to die,
Hath found new life in Thine Infinity.

Go, then, and learn this lesson of the Cross,
And tread the way that saints and prophets trod:
Who, counting life and self and all things loss,
Have found in inward death the life of God.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

 

Below is a nice review of this great film, and the story of the Monks of Tibhirine.
https://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/of-gods-and-men-the-gospel-of-love/