Our God is love. His being is to love. Therefore, He cannot but love. He loves us infinitely, unconditionally, and unmeasurably. He calls us to love him back and to love our neighbors. Christ showed us that all the commandments are summed up by love: the love for God and the neighbor. Christ, who calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Cf. Mark12:31), is the same who calls us to love one another as He has loved us (Cf. John13:34). On this, we have to live our life by protecting it from all that which can harm it. No one hates his life. However, the way we love ourselves should not be the standard in loving others. One can think that he loves his life while he is ruining it or that of others. That is why the standard of love should be Jesus whose earthly life was characterized by love.
According to Jesus, “there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John15:13). Jesus put this into practice by dying on the cross for us. This is the summit of love. While he could escape his calvary, Jesus willingly accepted to die to expiate our sins; and continues to love us even after his death. He did not leave his disciples orphans, for he left them the Holy Spirit. Thus, he is ever-present in our midst.
Among the saints who succeeded in imitating Jesus in such a greatest love, I admire Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who loved until he died for his neighbor:
Maximilian Kolbe was a Poland Priest belonging to the Franciscan Friars. In February 1941, he was arrested by the Nazis for hiding Jewish people and for issuing anti-Nazi German publications. After a brief internment in a notorious Polish prison, he was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. In July 1941, three prisoners appeared to have escaped from the camp; as a result, the Deputy Commander of Auschwitz ordered 10 men to be chosen to be starved to death in an underground bunker. When one of the selected men Franciszek Gajowniczek heard he was selected, he cried out “My wife! My children!” On hearing that, Father Kolbe pointed with his hand to the condemned and repeated: “I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place because he has a wife and children.” Surprised, the commander accepted Kolbe to die in place of Gajowniczek. He was canonized, in 1981, as a martyr by Pope John Paul II.
This is a good example of the one who loved until the end. Like Jesus, Father Kolbe found that he should die for his neighbor in order to love unmeasurably. He chose to die so that his Spirit might remain with the ones he loved as well as those whom he would love later through the Holy Spirit. Whenever I read through his life, I felt his presence in me. His heroic life has changed my life. While I used to doubt, I was encouraged by him to see the importance of loving until the end. He died a martyr of fraternity. His blood has been the seed in the church.
However, we should not make a martyr. We should not seek to die for those we love at all costs. No, we should not seek death, lest we be committing suicide. We are called to keep life for the service of our brothers and sisters, who are in most need of it. However, someone may find it necessary to lay down his life for those he loves, in the example of Jesus. To die for others is a praiseworthy act that constitutes the greatest love. It is difficult to freely accept it if it is not grace from God. While not putting aside the possibility of dying for others, that is always praiseworthy, there is another way of dying for others through the dedication of one's life for them. It is to die to ourselves to love and live for others all our life. It is to see that we don’t possess our lives for ourselves but much more for others.
To illustrate this, we see how some people live for others. Among others, there are the priests who are priests, not for themselves, but for others. As Saint Cure d’Ars put it, they cannot administer to themselves the sacraments, but to others. Some Christians are more Christians for others than they are for themselves. As for me, I am a missionary not too much to myself, but for the non-Christians who are still living in ignorance of Christ. I am not looking for any privilege by being a missionary. This is because of love. Saint Therese of Lisieux came to understand that it is love alone that makes the members of the Church work; that if love were to die away the apostles would no longer preach the Gospel, martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. She also understood that love comprises all vocations, that love is everything, that it embraces all times and all places because it is eternal! (Cf. Story of A Soul, Chapter XI).
Overall, we are called to love in the way of God who does everything, not for himself, but his creatures. Look, He created everything that exists out of love, and He continues to communicate his love to us. In creating us, God did not need anything, for he would continue to be blissful even without us. On this, He does not draw any interest from what he has made, for love is gratuitous and disinterested. By his unconditional love, He does not impose us to love Him back, for He respects our freedom- the greatest gift we are created with. In many ways, he even humbles himself up to suffering, provided that we are better in our relationship with Him. That is why to love is to die to oneself so that others may live. That is the summit love. It is love at its best; the greatest love.