Love is Blind

6th Easter Sunday

May 25, 2014

John 14:15-21

“Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him (John 14:21).”

A Classic adage proclaims “love is blind”. But, does it really hold water? Sometimes, when I go to the malls, I would see couples holding hands. Many are a perfect combination: both are good-looking and young. Yet, at times, I encounter an unlikely pair, a very pretty girl but with a substandard-looking guy. Noticing them, I raise my eyebrows and say to myself, “Really, love is blind.”

Looking into our social realities nowadays, love could really close our ‘eyes’ and drive us crazy. It is no longer a secret in big cities like Manila and Jakarta, a good number of youngsters already actively engage in pre-marital sex. Being young and adventurous, a pure love relationship may easily burst into lust. Yet, being immature, they are not ready to face the bigger-than-life consequences. Some girls get pregnant in early age. Some boys have the guts to take the responsibilities, though raising a family is enormously beyond their capacities. Some others, being immature, left the expectant young girls. These poor girls, the primary victims of this vicious cycle, are forced to rear the kid by herself. She is lucky if she has a family to support her, but if not, she looks for unimaginable options like dumping the baby in the orphanage or even killing the baby through abortion. Their futures and dreams shatter in an instant. This is love that blinds us.

However, is it the real and true love? We agree that it is not the true one. This emotional turbulence caused by intense attraction might be a part of love but it is not the real deal. It may just a lust hides itself in the name of love. Yet, does it mean the immortal saying ‘love is blind’ totally ridiculous? Let us look at some other subtle yet no-less-true realities among us. When we see an old couple remain faithful to each other in day in and day out, this poses a challenging ‘why’. The wife is no longer beautiful, and the man is no longer healthy and in shape. They definitely hurdle a lot of crisis in their marriage life. Perhaps they have very stubborn and rebellious children. All that they invest seems never go back to them. So, why do they stay together? I would say that really love is blind.

Love blinds their sight to see petty imperfections and quarrels. Love closes their eyes to deteriorating physical appearances of their partner and financial problems that rock the family. Love shuts their gaze to ‘counting-the-cost’ and ‘expecting-return’ mentalities. But, why does love need to blind us? Love blinds so that we may see even clearer. To see what? To see a deeper reality of love itself.

Reading closely into today’s Gospel, we discover that to love is actually to see. To love Jesus and to do His commandments leads us to see Him in us because we are always in Him. Yes, Jesus has ascended to the Father, yet the moment we love radically, we start seeing Him in the very person we love. Jesus is once again present in our midst. Remember that God is love, and when there is love, God is there.

 We can easily say ‘I love Jesus’ in prayer gatherings, but unless love becomes a concrete action, we never see Jesus. To love Jesus means to take care of our aging and sometimes irritating parents; to love Jesus means to listen to our demanding and sometimes egotistic friends or co-workers; to love Jesus means to attend to the need of our baby who cries at the midnight. Unless love blinds us to these imperfections, we never love fully. And unless we love totally, we never see Jesus again.     

Br. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP