"Those who are afraid are not perfect in love" (1 Jn 4:18)

Biblical meditation by Don Andrea Conocchia on 1 AGIOVANNI 4.18 held in online prayer in the Week of prayer for the victims of homophobia and transphobia of 15 May 2021

In love there is no fear; Indeed, the perfect love hunts away fear, because those who are afraid fear a punishment. So those who are afraid are not perfect in love. (1GV 4,18)

Reading these words arouses in me a series of conflicting thoughts and emotions. It happened to me that he was afraid to love, then does it mean that there is something wrong with me? What is this perfect love that we talk about? Does it really exist? Have you ever experienced it? Try it? Living it? If I think of my love for God I can answer that you get very close.

But if I think of the human love stories that I have been able to try and that are told to me by the people I encounter and listen, I have some difficulty in welcoming this equation without reservations that makes love eliminates fear. How many fears actually manifest themselves, the fear of not being loved as you are, the fear of being judged, the fear of not being up to par, the fear of not deserving love, the fear of getting lost ... And who knows how many more you could tell me.

Queste paure rendono meno degno l’amore che viviamo o sono la nostra reazione all’imprevedibilità dell’amore? A ciò che dell’amore sfugge al nostro controllo e che ce lo fa sentire a volte come un qualcosa di minaccioso.
Tutti siamo alla ricerca di un amore, ma vivere una relazione seria spaventa. Talvolta ci piacerebbe lasciarci andare ma ci sono tante resistenze mentali, che ci bloccano e non ci permettono di vivere serenamente una delle esperienze più belle della vita.

Dio è amore in se stesso e ci ha fatto sperimentare questo amore attraverso l’umanità di suo figlio Gesù proprio perché noi potessimo sentirci compresi, accolti, confermati, rassicurati, in una parola, potessimo sentirci amati. L’amore se vissuto in pienezza, porta con sé una parte di rischio perché il mettersi in gioco così come si, è di per sé rischioso. Quanto l’altro, l’altra è disposto ad accogliermi? Quanto io sono disposto a farlo?

It becomes a vicious circle, because the more you are afraid of loving, the less you love and the more you suffer, but thinking that the cause of everything is outside us because the others do not like us. Paradoxically, the only remedy for the fear of loving is to love, however starting from love for ourselves. As long as I judge myself, I evaluate myself, I compete, I am convinced that love should be deserved rather than received for free, I will not be able to love me and I will fear punishments for what I do. Until I am able to love myself, it will be unlikely that I feel loved because I will feed a whole series of fears that will prevent me from living love.

Does my amiability depend on my way of acting? If I do well, I am lovable and I love me, otherwise I am worthy of all the punishment in the world, starting from those who, with thoughts and judgments, I deal with myself?
Or did my amiability come with me? I am loved by God and consequently am I lovable?

Can I try to think about it? Can I try to experience it? Do I have the courage to love my fragility? To welcome my fears? To look at them in the face? To give him a name? Can I caress my fears with the love I am capable of? Can I take care of it? Can I love me and let myself be loved?

Let's try to seek in us the courage that takes with him the fear of loving. Let's try to search the other that free and unconditional love that allows us to get to know each other in the truth.

Let's try to seek in God that bond of love from which everything is born, around which everything moves and to whom everything returns.