The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
When I was a little girl, I thought of love as the perfect fairy tale where royalty meets normalcy and the couple lives happily ever after. Rom-coms and novels depict love as a feeling that fills the human heart with butterflies and nerves as the protagonists find their journeys intertwined with one another. I wondered if love was something more than a one-time grand gesture, more than a feeling.
As I’ve gotten older, I have come to realize that love is more than a feeling in a moment. Love is a decision that wills the good of another, a place where the human heart finds fulfillment, a state of communion with the One who gave everything for us.
Today, we hear Jesus tell His disciples: “Remain in my love… It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.” Jesus, Love Incarnate, does more than choose us for a moment. Rather, He pursues us in relationship, revealing Himself to us. His love becomes the place in which He reveals our hearts to us and reveals the love for which we were made. In loving us, He invites us into relationship, pursuing us day after day and reminding us of His deep and everlasting love. Jesus hears the cry of every human heart, the cry that longs to know how loved it is, and seeks to fill the heart with joy.
Love Incarnate continues to choose us and sacrifices Himself for us every day. Though this life does not always feel like a fairy tale and is not picture perfect, Love Incarnate continues to pursue you.
As we continue to journey with Him, I invite you to be still. Be still and simply remain in His gaze, remain in His love. Open your heart to Christ who tirelessly pursues you, seeks to know you, wants to fill you with His joy. Remain in Him as He remains in us
Chrysta Joy Jaucian is a student physical therapist, singer, and missionary from Houston, Texas. She serves with Adore Ministries, a ministry seeking to know, love, and serve God by serving teens and families along the local margins. Chrysta loves drinking coffee, sharing laughter, and finding Jesus in the ordinary.