Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.
1 John 4:11-12

In his Theology of the Body, Blessed John Paul II released into the world a revolutionary message about human love as a reflection of the divine. “The body, and only the body is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it.” (TOB 19:4)

This is true not only in married love, but also in the priestly and religious vocations. In a recent exchange with a priest friend of mine, I was struck by how much our vocations had in common. For each of us, the fullest expression of love came not in sexual/genital expression, but in a willingness to sacrifice our personal interests and comforts out of love for our children (and at times, even our spouse). The temptation to look on the other side of the fence can be great — at the end of the day, the harried wife and mother longs for a moment of peace just as the harried priest longs for the comfort of wife and children. But both of us are an embodied expression of an invisible reality of our ultimate destiny as the Bride of Christ.

Today’s Love in Action: How will your love be perfected today? What small sacrifice will you make to love just a little more generously?