By Dr. Dencio S Acop
Every now and then, the spirit touches us. Stirrings of the spirit usually come to me soon after I wake up in the morning or go out for a run. I try to write them down lest I soon forget which happens. While I ran last week and saw the beauty of nature around me, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how God communicates with each one of us through every sight, word, and sound. There is this beautiful beach place near where we live which has become a favorite walking and running place. There are benches and parks too where we can just sit, sip coffee, and marvel at the beauty of God’s creation surrounding us.
Holy Week 2025 has just concluded and that final scene in The Risen still reverberates in my head. In a way, the message of the film is what the relived narrative about the life, passion, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is supposed to rekindle in us during the holy season just passed. In the final scene, the once worldly Tribune, right-hand man to the Roman governor, becomes a converted man. He discards his Tribune’s ring — his attachment to worldly power and privilege — confessing to the innkeeper that he could no longer live the way he used to. His eyes were opened by Christ himself to the truth of the gospel. Those eyes saw a man who was once dead, hanging on a cross, alive again with his disciples, smiling and breaking bread with them. He has found the kingdom of heaven. And so gave up everything.
As I listened to the Croatian cellist Hauser, the thought of the all-powerful Creator of the universe laying down all life and creation before us so we could love Him back overwhelmed me. Hauser has a way of performing his cello amidst the beauty of nature whether inside a forest in Serbia or in an old and abandoned fort by the waters of Dubrovnik. He plays barefooted. We search for God. We look for Him. Often in the wrong places. But God is right before our eyes. In the creation He gifted us with like a lover. Each of us is His beloved. It is almost impossible for us humans to love and know love without someone to love. We know this love is selfless because we give ourselves to others in loving just as God created us to love and for us to love one another. But God wants us to love out of our own free will. God leaves us alone so we can love Him back using our free will — love needs more than one; otherwise, it is not love but self-love which is no love. God can do anything but He doesn’t operate like that when it comes to love. What good would that be? He’d say…
Thus, loving God despite all barriers thrown at us not to love Him back is the greatest love of all. Love is strongest when it is love that defies all human understanding — the kind Jesus left us with through his passion, death, and resurrection. Love that is strongest when tested by the worst adversity and the perversion of what’s true and good. Love that conquers death. The love that God inspires is the kind that humans must seek. His Son taught us every moral good. He said that he who does not seek this love is not worthy of him. Lucifer, who defied this love, became unworthy. All who take on the sin of pride as Lucifer did, cannot truly love for their love is devoid of the beloved but only operates in self-love. Who is like God, Michael challenged him who thought he knew all the answers. But no one sees and knows what God does. We all can only see the small picture. Only God the Creator of all things has the big picture. The only way we can share in God’s glory is through the love He’s gifted us exemplified and manifested in His Son.
