Love relieves suffering

The embodiment of God’s holy love in our lives, fuels the struggle against injustice, motivating us to act in ways that radically deny hierarchies of discrimination and inequality in relationships. This love exposes injustice and reaches out to heal the suffering of the oppressor and the oppressed. The holiness guards against the subtle intrusion of self righteousness into even our most charitable acts. Holiness sets the fight for truth, justice and peace, and the fight against deception, injustice and violence within the wider horizon of love.

The relationship in One God-Father, Son and, Holy Spirit is marked by mutuality. The same relationship of mutuality, must then be clearly exhibited in our relationships as well. This practice of truth leaves no ground to perpetuate human hierarchies of caste, gender or religious authority. The people of God include women and men, and people from all social backgrounds. The insistence on the equality of all before God has been a radical theme in devotional songs sung in praise of God, the Creator of all.

The songs affirm the dignity and equality of all, unmask the prejudices embedded in social hierarchies, challenge religious quarreling, and offer the path of peace based not on money, power or birth but on devotion to God.  These songs when sung by those who suffer oppression and deprivation become a language of resistance, asking for their space of dignity and equality in the society. We need to remember that God pours His love and Holy Spirit into our hearts without any gender discrimination. The presence of the poor and destitute in our society shows our failing in the mandate to love and serve all even as the society resorts to violent conflict. To live the life of love necessarily exposes injustice and offers a concrete demonstration of the way of Christ, who both embraced justice and actively worked to relieve suffering.