The truest servants of Christ do not need to hog limelight 
The Universe
(January 16, 2005)
JESUS was, and is, a revolutionary. His revolution is one that will inspire us to change our self-understanding and be of one heart and mind with him and to find him where we couldn't believe him to be.
The greatest challenge he gave his followers was to find God by forgetting themselves and to believe that God was present in the most unlikely of places and people - in the poor, with the unwanted, beside the lonely, holding the sick, guiding the children, with the suffering victims.
To experience God's presence takes preparation, dedication, commitment and courage. Yet it is a journey worth taking for a life worth living, one never to be regretted or forgotten.
We are invited to do this without looking for something to come out of it for ourselves. It is a paradox. I want to be loved, it sounds selfish, but I am supposed to deny that desire for the sake of loving others without expecting or seeking something for myself.
Difficult, yes, impossible, no. Yes living a life putting others first is hard, especially in the modern world where love is something physical and the urge for instant gratification is so overwhelming.
Temptations abound. If God is love, as the scripture reveals to us, then real fulfilling love is a mystery.
What passes for love nowadays is fatal attraction, emotional confusion, instant marriage, quicker divorce, infatuation, sexual encounters, self gratification, abuse and exploitation. This, and all the other box office hype, is what has led youth astray and away from a meaningful life of purpose and doing good for others.
It is a sad tale of failed human encounters. We hear little in the media about the heroic love of service, dedication and sacrifice for the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed.
Yet this love is plentiful in the slums and refugee camps of the world. We have seen the dedicated social and refugee workers being executed for their life of service.
These people are everywhere serving the poor yet they are hidden and unknown, humble and self-effacing. They don't need the limelight and publicity. Their contentment is within, content in their life with God as found in his poor, his exploited and his forgotten people. Forgotten by the world that is, but not by his disciples. They are the unsung heroes of courage and faith.
Those who sacrifice their lives in solidarity with the poor for Christ sake, challenging the corruption and injustice in the world are mostly forgotten. Their story has to be told too.
These are the real heroes filled with self-sacrificing love in the presence of God. That's why it is hard to understand and experience real love that makes humans fulfilled and content.
That's because there is sacrifice and hardship and not much cosy comfort. The hardship and sacrifice is nothing in comparison to the joy in being in the presence of God's love.
Discovering the highest experience of love is a spiritual moment of extreme happiness. That is the moment when we are touched by the presence of what is ... well, indescribable.
The crux of this adventure to the highest peaks is looking for something but we know not what. We have to experience it and then we will know it. [End]
