I Love You

Last week I posted "Do You Love Me?" in my blog but for some reason, I did not email anyone about it. I did not feel it was quite complete. Today, as I was contemplating on it, I realized I should have written "I Love You" first, before asking "Do You Love Me?"

I think the best description of love is found in 1 Corinthians 13. Almost every wedding I attended chose this as one of the readings. Not only is it beautifully written. It also describes what true love really is. I want to quote it here:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind;
love does not envy or boast;
it is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrongdoing,
but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

So now faith, hope, and love abide; but the greatest of these is love.

I love you - three little words often spoken, but somehow often misspoken and not fully understood. In Martin Buber's poem "I and Thou" my favorite line is "I love you not for what you are but for what I am when I am with you." Love transforms us. True love makes us better persons.

In his homily this past Wednesday night, Fr. Wharren talked about the miracle of loaves and fishes -- the feeding of thousands. He said the scholars have two schools of thoughts in this miracle - one is that Jesus actually performed the miracle and multiplied the loaves and fishes; the other is that Jesus, performed a miracle through sharing his true love that the people on that mountain felt and with hearts filled with love, they shared their own loaves and fishes with everyone else, enabling everyone to eat and still have loads of leftovers after everyone had their fill. They were transformed, at least at that moment and time, by love - true and unconditional love. I think I like the second school of thoughts better. It makes sense. Love makes us generous.

I love you. When was the last time you looked at a person and felt the love from within you? When did you last tell someone you love them and felt your skin pores explode with goose bumps? When did you last tell someone you love them and tears swell from your eyes because of the overpowering affection you have for them? I really hope this happens to you often, if not everyday.

I love you. We love in different ways, at different degrees, for different reasons, at different times, but our hearts are always in love. All our hearts are big enough and are capable of loving a lot more people than those we currently have in our lives, if only we want to, if only we leave our hearts open. If only we don't require conditions.

I love you. We don't need to be next to a person to show them our love. Love can be felt despite the distance. I miss my siblings so much, the thought of them bring tears to my eyes - tears of longing to be with family, tears of love. In my sister's last IM to me, she told me she loves me and how much she misses me. She also expressed their (both sisters) wish to be able to be with me as I deal with my health issues. You see, when we were young, my two sisters always looked after me. After every spanking I got from Nanay, one or both of them was/were always there to comfort me. I miss them so. I love them so.

I love you. We fall in love many times, but do we really fall out of love? If we do fall out of love, maybe it wasn't really love to begin with. When we feel the pitter-patter in our hearts, the sweat in our palms, the longing in our eyes, are we really in love? Are we able to distinguish between true love and our hormonal and human desires? Love is beyond phsyical satisfaction. After the excitement and the ecstasy, when love isn't true, our hearts remain empty, and our longing continue.

I love you. You are reading this blog because I emailed you. I emailed you because you are part of my life - be it in a small way or in a big way. You are part of my life because you were there when you were supposed to, or you are here and it was meant to be and we have made a connection. Neither of us will always be there physically, but I will always be in love with you, whether near or far, whether then or now, I love you - in the purest sense of the word.

I love you.

Picture: With my nephew and nieces - twins Justine and Joshua and their baby sister Kiara.