The First Sunday in Advent AD 2024

St. Paul says: “Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.”

“To owe to love” – what does it mean? No, it doesn’t mean that we do not need to love each other, because we will never be able to do it perfectly anyway. On the contrary, it means that there is nothing more important than to love – that love is our true calling and should become our true nature, just as God’s nature is love.

What is love? Love is not just a sweet feeling. Yes, love can be a sweet feeling, but it is much more than that. Love is not just affection, although that too belongs to love, but love is something more than that.

Love is the willingness to do what is best for the beloved. Love is putting the beloved first in everything and being willing to give everything, including one’s own life, for him. True love is free from all selfishness. In this sense, we have a “debt of love” towards our neighbor and towards God. Most of the time we are quite far from the perfection of love, and there are not many who have reached it.

The only One whose love is indisputably perfect is God. God is perfect, He has everything, and this means that no one can give Him or add to Him, anything. Therefore, everything that God has ever done for us is based entirely on selfless love – both the fact that He created us, and the fact that He has redeemed us through the passion, death, and resurrection of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

The love of God is the only force that can make us truly love. Through His love, God cleanses us of all evil, envy, and selfishness. God’s love makes us generous and gracious and helps us to “cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” The love of God makes all His children become true brothers and sisters.