Before a spent-out candle, an eaten loaf and an emptied glass of water, what is the right attitude: bemoan their loss or rejoice in the light and life received from them? Self-giving is their very nature.

This is what life is all about, because this is what love is all about.

We have a choice: we can live in fear of losing what we have or live joyfully giving what we receive.

When the need to protect and conserve life overshadows life itself, the fear of loss takes over. Living is reduced to surviving. We become obsessed with security and safety, hence our fixation on our own rights and privileges. Self-preservation and self-advancement become our top priority.

Is not this the driving force that, in some way or other, determines so many aspects of our society, ranging from economy to technology, politics and everything else?

Given the weakness and ingrained selfishness of human nature, is not this necessary in real life? We must insist on rights because wrong exists and we humans choose it very often. So we need to protect ourselves against ourselves.

My contention is that this takes us only a very short part of the way to the meaningful and full life we are all thirsty for. Reducing life to an exercise in self-preservation and self-promotion is simply allowing fear to be our ultimate master. And the wages of fear is always slavery. Fear can never generate freedom.

However menacing the threats around us, when all is said and done, spending our lives behind protective walls defending ourselves from them is like spending one’s life in a war trench. It is hesitating to light the candle, eat the loaf or drink the glass of water out of fear of losing them. We preserve the candle, the loaf and the water, but we lose their light, nourishment and refreshment.

No wonder we end up in pitch darkness, living a hungry, thirsty life. We have been created for a much brighter and meaningful life than this.

The alternative is Jesus, the light of the world, the bread of life, the source of living waters

Yes, we have a choice. The alternative to fear is love. The way of fear is enslavement. The way of love is the freedom of gratitude.

Gratitude is celebrating the fact that life is first and foremost a gift of love, not a survival from death.

Life is not a struggle to preserve what we possess, but a joy to receive and share what is offered to us freely and lovingly. We are indeed free to live if we are free to die!

If we choose to be driven by love instead of fear, the whole dynamics of life is completely transformed. Why should I protect myself from someone who loves me? How could someone take from me what I already want to give him or her? How could I be afraid of someone I am thankful for? Why protect myself against a friend offering to give himself to me? How could I see someone as my enemy if my sole wish is to be a gift to him?

Gratitude is living life as a gift of love. It takes us way beyond the need of rights and contracts. It takes us to the highest expression of ultimate giving: Jesus.

Yes, the alternative is indeed Jesus, the light of the world, the bread of life, the source of living waters. He came to reveal to us that we too can be gifts of love, because life itself is a gift of love. The life he offers is found in living it freely as a gift received to be given. This is the truth that makes us free.

Our gratitude goes to those who, in their very human fragility, have shown us that this is indeed possible and worthwhile. We are grateful to the times when we have lived it.

Let us not spend our lives weeping our losses or fighting to prevent them. Let us spend it thankfully rejoicing in the good news that we too can become gifts of love to God and to our brothers and sisters.

pchetcuti@gmail.com

Fr Paul Chetcuti is a member of the Society of Jesus.

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