Catholic Diocese of Broome

How very sad it is when someone says to you that they feel unloved, but it is even sadder when they are convinced that in the entire world there is not one person who loves them. It is of course sometimes the lament of someone down and out, affected by alcohol or drugs, destitute and lonely. A priest is often called to listen to such thoughts from people who might also need food or lodging or assistance to travel. Many a priest has spent significant time trying to help people in desperate circumstances, while realizing that food and lodging for the poor person on your doorstep is a lot easier to provide than to heal a desperate loss of friendship or the lack of feeling loved.

It is an important part of life’s tasks to deal with the feelings of others. In that context, from my observation, three year olds appear to be particularly challenging for young parents and not so young grandparents. Teenagers too, on many an occasion, seem to push their feelings into the arena of conflict with parents who in response grizzle about there being too many hormones in take-away chicken! Good marriages are certainly built on the ability to live comfortably with the feelings of the spouse and to anticipate the other’s emotional needs and expressions.

Each individual is challenged in life to appreciate and manage their own feelings. Of course this is impossible for the three year old, while the teenager still has built-in natural limitations that expand with the passage of time, with the love and help of those around them. That is the process we call growing up. Receiving the help and love of others is indispensable for us all if we are to reach our full potential as human beings, as God so wishes.

Acknowledgement of the need for love of self and others, and the engendering of appropriate feelings in our lives, is something with which we readily agree. It is supposed to be something adults have a handle on. Yet, time and time again, there is ample evidence that we are not in touch with our true selves and that we have an inadequate understanding of our emotional needs and those of others. So often we do not deal with our feelings appropriately. We deny love, not only to ourselves but to those around us and this is what contributes to our dysfunction – individually, in the family and in our community. It is this state of affairs which gives rise to our appalling suicide rate, the breakdown of marriage and relationships, the high incidence of depression, the growing cases of mental illness and the dependence we have on behaviour-changing drugs – legal and illegal.

Living the human condition is always going to be a challenge. For me, one of the great revelations in life is the awareness that it is best dealt with on a higher plane of consciousness, learning to live in love with God and to live in love with ourselves. Through our faith we are reminded that the death and resurrection of Christ was a supreme act of love, an act of redemption, of re-formation, poured out for us individually and for the human race collectively. Savouring the words and the grace that comes from a relationship with Jesus the Christ, ‘loving one another as he has loved us’, is a good beginning to knowing and appreciating the joy that God has in mind for us.