I.

AN EXPERIENCE OF LOVE IN GUANELLA HOME

As part of the ICTC academic program, I had my wonderful one month immersion
experience with the mentally challenged children of Guanella Home for Special Children,
Tandang Sora last August 8 to September 8, 2015. The institution is run and managed by the
Servants of Charity fathers for more than 20 years already and it is now serving a total of twenty
abandoned mentally challenged male children and adults.
Guanella Home, as an institution, has its rules and regulations as well as prepared
schedule of activities for the children to follow and for us, immersionists, to be guided with. Our
main objective for the month long immersion is to be able to know and understand the life
struggles of the children in the institution and to be able to listen to their stories in order for us to
truly connect and imbibe the struggles that they are going through.
In fulfilling our immersion’s goal, I always spend a lot of delightful time with the special
children in their daily dynamics. Every day I gave them bath, I assisted some of them during
meals, I accompanied them in going to school, I played with them, and I took all my effort to talk
to them in their own pacing just to be able to sincerely understand each other. They are at first
difficult to deal with but in the course of time they got used to me and they became more
cooperative.
With my involvement with the kids what struck me most in my whole immersion
experience is my discovery of a beautiful hidden reality in the communal life of the abandoned
mentally challenged children of Guanella Home which can only be truly and sincerely realized
when one faithfully live and do things together with them. What I saw in the way they relate with
each other brought me into a deep reflection inspiring me to look at how I relate with other
people especially with my community in the religious congregation where I belong.
It is important to note that the mentally challenged children residing in Guanella are
mostly abandoned by their parents. Some were admitted to the institution due to the extreme
poverty of their immediate families, while others are transferees from other institutions. They are
now living together with the Servants of Charity fathers and with some volunteer caregivers in
the institution, and these people have eventually become their immediate guardians.
Although their intellectual capability is very limited and some even have physical
deformation, however their emotional capacity is strong enough to make them not less than
human. Coming from a month living with them, it seems for me (without any bias from clinical
perspective) that they are fully aware of their own disability and they know that they are
physically weaker than normal people. They can also sense and feel whether they are accepted or
not by sane people around them. Likewise, they are also aware that they are living with people
who have the same weakness and disability.
But what touches my heart the most is their awareness that they are abandoned by the
people who supposed to love and care for them. That is why in order to fill their inner longing
for connection they learned how to extend love, concern, and care for the other children they live
with. Despite their tantrums and severe mood swings, I can see deep within their eyes that they
yearn for the love they deserve, but since they cannot experience that love from their families,
they yearn that love from the people who volunteered to take care of them in the institution.
Moreover, it seems that each of them knows that the other mentally challenged children
they live with yearn for that same love they yearn for themselves, in effect, each shares in his
own capacity an expression of love which can be felt and accepted by the other. I concretely saw
that one knows how to console the other who is in trouble and one knows how to make others
laugh and enjoy. They assist and help each other in performing tasks assigned to them and they
share the joy together once they successfully perform the task given to them. And as what I have
experienced, they show their love and concern for the other not so much in words but in simple
gestures of hugs, kisses, and tickles. In their small community, I am fortunate and blessed to see
that the strong force of love underlying the heart of each child in Guanella indeed breaks away
boundaries between them, and this same force connects them in a much deeper bond that we
“normal” people even miss to see in our relationship with others.
In this paper, I will be using Karl Rahner’s theological approach on love as my lens in
deepening my experience of love with the mentally challenged children of Guanella Home.
Through Rahner’s “Reflections on the unity of the love of neighbor and the love of God,” I may
be able to see and realize that the love I saw in Guanella Home is not just a “love” born out of
psychological responses but a love which is rooted in ‘God who is love’ that will eventually
teach me to love as how an authentic Christian truly loves.

II. KARL RAHNER’S “REFLECTIONS ON THE UNITY OF THE LOVE OF

NEIGHBOR AND THE LOVE OF GOD”

Karl Rahner, a Jesuit priest and a distinguished theologian in the contemporary period,
wrote in the sixth volume of his Theological Investigations an account which he entitled
Reflections on the unity of the Love of Neighbor and the Love of God. His man thesis in this
account states that the explicit love of neighbor is the primary act of the love of God. God indeed
is of a transcendental kind, therefore God does not fall into any category (material qualities) but
is given in the infinite reference of the spirit of man1 beyond every object of his personal and
material environment, hence the experience of God is always given in a ‘worldly’ experience
only present genuinely and totally in the communion with a ‘Thou.’2
Primarily, Karl Rahner’s objective of pointing out a concrete unity between the love of
God and the love of neighbor is to show that the commandment of Love which is given to us by
Christ is not merely an imperative. It is not only a command that will lead each one of us to a
kind of love that will settle to an act of sympathy or help under an organized effort or merely a
human response to a call of a certain desperate condition. Rahner wants to emphasize a love
shown through an act of charity to other human beings, and this charity must reflect a unity with
the love of God.
Rahner elaborates more on the love of neighbor by referring back to the Synoptic
theology of love particularly in the Gospel of St. Matthew where love of neighbor is given as the
only explicit standard by which to be judged 3 under its eschatological discourses about the
Judgment, and that the loss of this love is represented as the content of lawlessness among the
afflictions of the last days. Rahner also referred to St. Paul’s letters’ strong emphasis on the love
of neighbor4 as the fulfillment of the law,5 as the bond of perfection,6 and as the better way of a
final and simple Christian form of existence.7
1
Rahner, Karl. (1969). Theological Investigations Vol 6. London: Darton, Longman & Todd LTD. p 246.
2
“Thou” is a borrowed term from the philosopher Martin Buber in his philosophy of dialogue particularly in
the discussion on the ‘I-Thou’ relationship in explicating the maning of personhood. Here Rahner uses Thou to refer
both to other human beings considered as neighbors in their entireity as living persons and to the transcendental
Thou who is God. Ibid. 246.
3
Mt. 25:34-46. Ibid. 234.
4
The commandment of Jesus in John 13:34
5
Rm 13:8, 10; Ga 5:14. Ibid. 234.
6
Col 3:14, Ibid 234.
7
1 Co 12:31-13:13. Ibid, 234.
 With a strong biblical foundation, Rahner claims that the act of personal love for
another human being is therefore the all-embracing basic act of man which gives, meaning,
direction and measure to everything else. To further support this claim he discussed that this
basic act of love of the Thou is an essential a priori openness of oneself to the other human being
which must be undertaken freely; and this a priori basic constitution is expressed in the concrete
encounter with man in the concrete. In other words, it is in the act of love for another, and in this
alone, the original unity of being human and the totality of man’s experience is collected together
and achieved, hence the love for the other concrete human is not just something which exists
personally within but is man himself in his totality of being.
Since the basic act of love of the other Thou is also the fulfillment of one’s totality of his
being hence it is also a spiritually transcendental nature of man. With this state, “then it would
also be easier to grasp that [the love of the other Thou] occurs in the present economy of
salvation only in the form of caritas, for caritas means nothing else than the absolute radicality
of this love in so far as it is open to the immediacy of the God who communicates himself under
the form of grace.”8
Indeed, the explicit love of neighbor is also the primary act of the love of God, because a
genuine love of God will always intends God in supernatural transcendentiality in the love of
neighbor as such, and even the explicit love of God is still borne by that opening in trusting love
to the whole of reality which takes place in the love of neighbor. 9 Rahner’s thesis further
highlights that “a natural-supernatural knowledge and love of God of an existentially authentic
kind, in which the reality of God is truly experienced, is in the very nature of things an act which
can only be posited by man as a whole.”10 For Rahner, everything God is and with which God is
concerned must be included in this basic act of love of the other, otherwise the absolute ground
of reality, the ground of the knowing and acting spirit, would not be encountered in it and God
would not appear in it as God, as a Person, as Freedom and as absolute mystery.11

III. LOVE IN GUANELLA HOME

In the little community of Guanella Home for special children, the mentally challenged
young people manifest a bond which do not only connects them together but also defines them in
their individuality. Each of the special child in Guanella, aside from having either a mental
disability or both mental and physical disability, possesses unique talents, skills, and personality.
Every child, though may not be fully conscious of his abilities, in one way or another, can
contribute something to the community at large. This individual capacity to contribute something
personal to the whole community enables them to connect with one another. However,
contributing something (i.e. talents and skills) to the community is not the main source of
connection for them. They connect because they saw that each one of them yearns for
connection, attention, care, and love. Because they are abandoned children, they did not receive
enough love they need from their immediate family who are supposed to give it to them that is
why they are already very happy that the Servants of Charity fathers and the volunteer caregivers
provide the love which their family cannot give them.
8
Caritas. Ibid. 243. In addition, Rahner explains this by stating that “The act of love of neighbor is,
therefore, the only categorized and original act in which man attains the whole of reality given to us in categories,
with regard to which he fulfills himself perfectly correctly and in which he always already makes the transcendental
and direct experience of God by grace. Ibid. 246.
9
Ibid. 247.
10
Ibid. 248.
11
Ibid. 248.
 Their caregivers, in their own capacity, give them the love they deserve and in effect they
share the love within their little home in Guanella. With my experience with them I was able to
see that in their own little ways of extending help to another child, in cheering up others who are
sad, in appreciating the people around them, and in sharing what little they have to others, show
to me a concrete example of an explicit love of neighbor. I experienced with them a love that
does not count any costs and does not discriminate any one. They made me realize that it is
indeed possible that in loving there is no need to express it in sumptuous ways, rather even in the
simplest manner of giving oneself in loving charity for the other will eventually lead to an
experience of wholeness and transcendence.
Despite the disability of each child, one finds himself contented, happy, and whole inside
Guanella Home, because he was able to love another even in the simplest manner. This reality is
I believe what Rahner says the fulfillment of one’s totality of his being which is also a spiritually
transcendental nature of man. Indeed each child taught me in a simple way that love of neighbor
is ultimately possible. This love, as expressed by each child, may not be totally clear in their
consciousness, nonetheless, is truly and freely given to others especially to another differently
abled child. It may not be totally obvious for them, but their simple acts of love for the others
eventually lead them to a love of God; since love of neighbor and love of God, as Rahner claims,
are united hence this unity is found in the act of love given by every child in Guanella. Their
simple love of the others is their simple love of God. God, I believe, is surely happy with them
because the children are able to live out this basic act of love concretely and existentially.
Because of this, each child possesses a natural-supernatural knowledge and love of God, for they
were able to live out concretely and existentially this basic act of love of neighbor [Thou] which
ultimately makes each one of them whole and at the same time in a spiritually transcendental
nature.

IV. PASTORAL ACTION

As a student of theology and as a professed religious, I will go back to Guanella Home to

help the preservation of their little ways of developing their relationship with another and with
themselves. I will also formulate programs in collaboration with professional psychologists, the
Servants of Charity fathers, and the volunteer caregivers that will suit the capacity of the children
and will also help strengthen their community bonding. I will also develop programs for spiritual
guidance according to their different levels of capacity and acceptance. The programs therefore
must reflect a concrete expression of a communal effort shown through helping one another out
of love.
The programs must also help each child to realize that they are loved especially by God
who is love. Aside for the communal impact of the programs, they must also help each child to
nurture more the value of genuine Christian love. Moreover, the programs must also allow them
to extend their horizon by not constricting their acts of love and help to the community within
Guanella Home but to the larger community outside the institution. In this way, they will not
only practice their Christian lives within their small community but become exemplars to other
people in the bigger society. They must continue to reflect to all people the beauty of the unity
between the love of neighbor and the love of God.
SOURCES

Kroeger, James H. (Ed). (2011) Documents of Vatican Council II. Pasay City: Paulines
Publishing
House.

The Jerusalem Bible. (1966). New York: Doubleday and Company Inc. and Darton, Longman &
Todd, Ltd

Pope Benedict XVI. (2005). Deus Caritas Est. Pasay City: Paulines Publishing House.

Pope, Stephen J. (1991). The Order of Love and Recent Catholic Ethics: A constructive proposal.
Theological Studies. USA: University Microfilms, Inc.

Rahner, Karl. (1969). Theological Investigations Vol. 6. London: Darton, Longman & Todd
LTD.
LOVE OF GOD AND LOVE OF NEIGHBOR: AN EXPERIENCE OF LOVE WITH THE
MENTALLY CHALLENGED CHILDREN OF GUANELLA HOME IN THE OPTIC OF
KARL RAHNER’S THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON LOVE

Fundamental Theology

Submitted To;

Fr. Robert Manansala, OFM

Submitted By:

JOIEZL FERN S. PIÑON, O.CARM

November 13, 2015