A friend ended an email saying: “Today I will surrender to the arms of God and then I will choose to be those arms.” Mystical and translator of mystics Mirabai Starr clearly states that “once you know the God of love, you shoot all other gods.” The god of love is the one who loves without measure and without regret. He who has open arms, hoping that they be in love, since we are loved.
I will not pretend a particularly deep understanding of the notion of San Agustín de Ordo Amoris – On what vice president JD Vance has encouraged us all “to Google”, or the best refinement of St. Thomas Aquino of hierarchical love ordered in his “Summa Theologica”.
Vance's analysis is that we must prioritize. You love God first, of course, then “you love your family and then love your neighbor, and then love your community, and then love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, you can concentrate and prioritize the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the World, ”he told an interviewer.
I suspect that we need to say goodbye to the God who thinks that it is not enough love for everyone.
Pope Francis weighed a letter to the US bishops who rebuked the Trump administration plan for mass deportations of migrants. He postulated that “the true Ordo Amoris that must be promoted is what we discover … meditating on the love that builds an open fraternity to all, without exception.”
An insignificant, self -absence, of God, of God, wants to be loved. But the God we really have is moderate, spacious, tremendously expansive and generous with love. In fact, God's dream,-true is the “fraternity open to all.”
Loving is our home. Once we discover that we are never nostalgic. Loving is where the flourishing joy is located. It cannot be exhausted. In fact, “love never fails” (1 Corinthians: 13) and anyway, it is what makes progress possible.
“Open arms” does not mean “open borders.” (Maybe I have lost it, but I have never heard anyone advocate for open borders, despite all the times the accusation has been level). The Pope in his letter simply stated that there was enough love to protect the dignity of migrants, to protect our communities and safeguard the truth that we belong.
The hope is that we align our hearts with the God of love and then become the generosity of God in our world. An ordered hierarchical love, on the contrary, fears that we are left without love. It takes a disposition of “too much tribe, not sufficient village” that reduces our ability to be as magnanimous as our God is with open weapons. Fear will do that.
What Vance, and maybe even Agustín and Aquino, could not see is the “God who is always greater”, as Saint Ignatius tells us. Always greater than our tidied hierarchical notions.
It seems that Jesus took four things seriously: inclusion, non -violence, unconditional loving badge and compassionate acceptance. This tracks with being the arms of God in the world.
The God of love wants us to find our path to the margins, knowing that if we do, the margins are deleted. Instead of limiting our love to a list of priorities, we must be with the poor, impotent and voiceless, with those whose dignity has been denied and those whose loads are more than they can bear. Instead of exhaustion, we find fullness among the easily despised and easily excluded. Our integrity increases when we accompany the demonized and the disposable, so that demonization ends and stop throwing people.
For 40 years, I accompanied the members of the gangs while seeking to imagine their lives, leave behind desperate violence and embrace God's hope for them. In Homeboy Industries we adopt two fundamental principles: all are unwavering; Without exceptions. We belong to each other; Without exceptions.
These principles do not allow us to limit ourselves to a verification list “we first love here, then we love there.” We appreciate while God appreciates. Appreciation is love with your rolled sleeves. Improves our ability to conceive a human immigration system, instead of hindering it. It prevents millions of people from dying after the United States agency for international development sides. It even focuses on to attend the environment, address mass imprisonment and care of those less capable of taking care of themselves.
We shoot the gods that prevent us from discovering our true being in love. Like the friend who chooses to be the arms of God, we can find a flourishing joy to welcome the non -loose. We will never be nostalgado.
Gregory J. Boyle, a Jesuit priest, is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, his latest book is “prepared of belonging: the healing power of love in divided times.”
