No Leftovers—Only the Whole HeartFr. Ramil D. Tapang, SSP
How far are you willing to give in the name of love? Someone once said, “Leave something for yourself when you love.” There is wisdom in that. You cannot keep pouring out if there is nothing left inside you.
You cannot give if you yourself are already broken. Yet if we are honest, we often learn to hold something back only after we have been hurt. Not when we are happy, not when life is going well, but when we are already exhausted. When you are the only one still fighting for the relationship, the only one trying to understand, the only one making an effort, the only one loving. When your “good morning” is only seen, when your “How are you?” receives no reply, when your heart feels like a glass that keeps falling and shattering and no one bothers to pick up the pieces. That is when we begin to say, “Enough. I need to save something for myself.” Because loving can be exhausting. It can make us cry. It can break our hearts.
Yet there is a love deeper than the kind of love we usually experience. Look at a mother. She does not wake up every morning because she feels like it; she wakes up because her child needs her. Look at a father. He does not go to work every day because he always has the energy or desire; he goes even when he is tired, worried, or hurting because his family depends on him. Why? Because genuine love does not constantly ask, “What will I get in return?” True love knows how to give itself.
And this is exactly the love of Jesus. He did not give leftovers. He did not offer only what was extra or convenient. He did not love us only when it was easy. He gave everything. As we celebrate Corpus Christi, Jesus reminds us in the Gospel: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven... and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “I will not merely give blessings, help, or mercy. I will give My very self.” He gave His Body. He gave His Blood. He gave His life. How far did He go? All the way to the Cross. To the last drop of blood. To His final breath. And He knew what it would cost Him. He knew He would be rejected, abandoned, betrayed, mocked, and crucified. Yet He still loved.
That is why every time we come before the Eucharist, Jesus quietly asks each one of us, “My child, how far are you willing to give in the name of love?” Not because He wants to drain us, but because He wants to transform us. Not so that we lose ourselves, but so that we learn to love as He loves. The truth is that a love that is afraid of being hurt has not yet fully learned how to love. Real love is willing to be wounded because it knows there is something greater than itself. In a world that often speaks about self-love in a way that becomes self-centeredness, Christ invites us to a love that knows how to offer itself for others.
So if Jesus asks us today, “How far are you willing to give in the name of love?” perhaps our answer is, “Lord, I am not ready yet. I am still wounded. I am not whole.” But Jesus responds, “My child, I am not asking for perfection. I am asking for your heart.” Because in the end, true love is not measured by how much we felt, but by how much we were willing to offer. Jesus held nothing back. He gave His whole heart. The question of Corpus Christi is this: Are we willing to do the same?
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