Love

“For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.” (2 Timothy 1:7-8).

Christ inthe House of His Parents (John Everett Millais)

We were created by LOVE and for LOVE.

God has no need of us.  In fact – considering the problems we have caused through wilful sinfulness and our constant and willing rejection of the Holy Will of God – we have been a right disaster in terms of utility to our Creator.  We are not even very good at worshipping Him and loving Him back.

Now, it is a good thing for us that God is Infinite and Complete and has no need of us.  However, it is a terrible consequence of sin that we are prohibiting ourselves – wilfully – from providing any comfort to our God who is so gravely offended by the sins of humankind.  And we know He is gravely offended because the Blessed Virgin, when she appeared to the shepherd children at Fatima at the turn of the last century told them, “do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended.”

And we do not just offend our God, but we continue to treat Him with disdain – this Infinitely Gentle Being who created the universe and came into it – entering into time and space so as to save us from our own sins and wickedness…

And I have been thinking about exactly how much love this involves.  You see, not only does God love us when we do the wrong thing and continue to love us through that, but He loves us when we do the wrong thing even knowing that it is causing such terrible suffering to Him because He has to fix the problem.

And the only way to understand this is to understand that “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.” (2 Timothy 1:7-8).

“Heaven is the birth-place and home of love. Its blessed inhabitants love much, love forever, and love only what is worthy of love. Joseph, however, was blessed by anticipation, for he passed all his days in the exercise of divine love, and lived a life of love upon earth. The Evangelists do not record a single word of this great saint; he observed, indeed, a marvellous silence. Not, however, an ungracious silence. The silence of ordinary men, as well as their irrepressible flow of words, is often merely selfish. But Joseph’s silence and his speech were alike prompted and regulated by the law of charity ... His words, indeed, were never superfluous, for they had their source in love, but they were also ruled by his will, not forced from him as the expression of his feelings.” (Edward Healy Thompson, “The Life and Glories of St. Joseph”, at page 362).

And I have been thinking about that love today, and considering how blessed I really am…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.