“We got it, we have it, it has been approved”, the wife excitedly exclaimed into the telephone to her husband. He responded with equal enthusiasm, “Great, wonderful, finally it has happened! Now we can complete our plans for the family.” The husband and wife were celebrating that their application for a housing loan had been approved and that they could now make plans for moving themselves and their children into a home of their own. Oh yes, they are required to pay the entire loan back over 30 years, until the loan is completely paid off, but they had planned for the payments. They could enjoy the moment in which the dream of owning their own home had come to fruition.
A similar joy and celebration occurs when a young adult obtains a loan for his first automobile. What a thrill it is to be able to buy one’s first car! Even though the loan payments may be difficult to make, there is the thrill of owning a car. “It is my car; I own it,” the youngster shouts to himself. It is thrilling. He is determined to make the payments due on the loan.
Loans are common place in all societies and often are made in services rendered rather than just money or other financial transactions. Most loans require some type of reimbursement, which can be paid in money or services or a commitment to an agenda. However, in most cases, there is an expectation that the loan will be paid back in some form or another and in a specified timeframe. For a home the time frame to repay the loan in full is often 30 years; a car loan repayment might be in 5 years. Whatever the time limit is for a loan, there is the expectation of repayment.
As important and exciting as are the loans for personal property, such as for homes and cars, there are human loans that far surpass any other loans. The most important loan is the one God gives to us of our lives. We receive our earthly lives, our very existence from God and He expects us to return it in full over a period time. Our lives are given to us for a purpose, to be enjoyed and filled with love and service. When the time arrives for the loan of our lives to be repaid, God will demand an accounting of our uses of the life He gave us. Was it filled with love for Him and for others or was it selfishly wasted on our passions, while neglecting others?
In addition to our very existence, God provides most of us with another loan – that of a mate. Aside from our existence, there is no more important loan than the loan of loving, caring mate. In return for this most precious of all loans, we are expected to offer God a relationship between ourselves and God that is equally loving. Over the period of the loan, the husband and wife offer back to God their lives, committing themselves to creating and raising children, while supporting each other’s relationship with God and the children. What an unsurpassed gift this loan is! It is a loan in which the recipients cooperate in the creation, enjoyment, and development of children. Together the spouses travel a life of love, sacrifice, and happiness as they pay God back for such a wonderful loan. Each couple will share in the responsibility to foster the love and care of each other and the children; God will judge how well the couple managed the gift of the loan. The loan comes to an end only when one of the partners is called back to God; fortunately the ending of the loan is only temporary. When the surviving spouse is also called back to God, there is every chance the loan will become a permanent loan in God’s dwelling.
May each one of us experience the unrestrained joy of continuing our love forever with God as our loan officer!
“Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. Our desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.” (From the “First Principal and Foundation” of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises)