Love and spiritual life
“It’s really love that makes us a spiritual person,” he insists and explains that by love, we synchronize with the Holy Spirit because the Spirit is love. God himself is love. He further explains this analogy through an incident in the life of Jesus in the story of a young man in the gospel of Mark (10:17 and following) where love was his response to a question directed to him. Padilla then read the story of a young man. As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good—but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not defraud, honor your father and your mother.”He replied and said to him, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth .” Jesus, looked at him with love.
But Jesus added that there was still another thing. He told the young man to go and sell everything that he owned and give the yield to the poor and that way “have treasure in heaven.” After doing that, Jesus told the young man, “come back and follow me.” But this made the young man sad and he walked away “for he had many possessions.”
The look of love
Fr. Gustillo says the the response of Jesus is very clear, “If you want eternal life, love God with all your heart, with your whole mind, with your whole strength and all your soul and do the commandments. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
Don’t be attached to things and possessions. What must I do to gain eternal life? Fr. Gustillo and Padilla then muse aloud about present-day man. Does he ask this kind question?
Padilla, who is exposed to a lot of young men in his apostolic work as the leader of Couples for Christ, explains that most do not asking this question.
“In fact,” Padilla says, “they have no clue about what comes after this life and don’t care even care. They just seek material pleasures.”
He adds that most men are also unaware that “we are called to be with our Father in heaven and we are just on a pilgrimage here on earth and that our real citizenship is in heaven.”
These realizations are the reasons why the Fathers for Good program was created. Fr. Gustillo says the show tries to help men to realize the essence of eternal life and how to gain this fullness of life.
He promises that the next episodes will bring that question to the fore and come up with the answers that would somehow allow the viewers to consider their own growth in the life of love.