Is there any anger and hatred that you hold on to? What’s keeping you from handing it over to God and letting Him heal your heart? - Daily Reflections April 15,2015

LIVE IN THE TRUTH, COME TO THE LIGHT   I like the contrasting images in the readings these days of Easter: darkness and light; imprisonment and freedom; perdition and salvation. They all remind us of the healthy tension between two realities that exist side by side. They speak about the paradoxical situation in which we, by the choices we make, can go either to the pole of enslavement or deliverance; the pole of darkness or light. Let us throw in, too, the polarities of love and hatred.        John tells us that the “people preferred darkness to light,” even if “light came into this world.”          Recent scientific research says that there is a very thin line that separates love from hatred. Both love and hatred show the same patterns of brain activity, except in one interesting aspect. When one loves, the cerebral cortex shuts down completely. When one hates, the cerebral cortex goes in turbo mode. When one is filled with love, logic does not work; reason does not take center stage. But when one hates, one becomes very logical, calculating and scheming. When one loves, the measure of love is to love without measure, as St. Francis de Sales puts it. When one hates, one finds all the needed logical reasons and justifications to hate somebody.          The one who hates finds reasons to deepen his hatred. One can grow in hatred and feel justified for being so. But when one loves, one grows deeper into loving. Love looks for no explanation and justification. Love is simply gratuitous. This may be the reason why Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI talked about the “principle of gratuitousness” in his encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est.”        The same principle may be the reason people prefer darkness to light. We can find all the reasons in the world to live in the darkness of anger and hatred. It is all a matter of choice and decision. But how about choosing today to live in the truth and come to the light? Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB   REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Is there any anger and hatred that you hold on to? What’s keeping you from handing it over to God and letting Him heal your heart?   Lord Jesus, I lift up to You all the anger and grudges buried deep in my heart. Melt them and fill my heart with only love.