Sunday's Readings:
1st Reading: Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 51: 3-4, 12-13, 17, 19
2nd Reading: 2 Timothy 1:12-17
Gospel: Luke 15:1-32
God loves you.
It's a pity those words have become cliché, because all too often we fail to recognize the significance of that simple Truth. God loves you.
We hear those words and shrug our shoulders. Of course He does. And then we seek "real" love in things, celebrities, and one another. how often has that terrible, hear-rending cry of "No one loves me" been heard? And yet it's not true. God loves you.
And it isn't a wishey-washy, general warm feeling for mankind as a whole. God loves you the individual. In the words of St. Augustine, "God loves each of us as if there were only one of us." He doesn't just like you. He loves you. He loves you passionately. The romantic poetry of the Song of Songs: "Behold thou art fair, O my love, behold thou art fair, thy eyes are as those of doves" (Song of Songs 1:14), "In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him and found him not" (Song of Songs 3:1); of the Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the Cross: "In search of my Love I will go over mountains and streams; I will gather no flowers, I will fear no wild beasts"; and of St. Augustine: "Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new! Late have I loved you! And, behold, you were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for you"; we read not of the love between a man and a woman, but of the love between God and the soul. He loves us more perfectly than the most enamored of lovers. You were created, not by chance, not by mistake, but by the love of God.
His is a jealous love. It is easy to look at the wrath of God in the Old Testament and wonder why it is brought forth by something so simple as crafting a golden calf, as in today's reading from Exodus. But we are interpreting the Law as if it were a law of men and not one of Divine love. When the Israelites fashioned the golden calf, they were not just breaking a rule. They were betraying God's love. It was an act of infidelity, of adultery to attribute their salvation from Egypt to a molten image. That is why we hear a God that might startle us a bit: "Let me alone, that my wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them"(Exodus 32:10). Part of God's love requires justice.
But His mercy exceeds our sinfulness. God allowed Himself to be "appeased from doing the evil which He had spoken against His people" (Exodus 32:14) by the prayers of Moses, His servant, because of love.
God's mercy is overwhelming. He loves us so much that He was willing to die on a Cross for our redemption. Our response to that mercy must be one of awe-struck humility: "Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin" (Psalm 51:4).
It is easy to think that we are not worthy of God's love because time and time again we fail to follow His will. But as the song in Jonah, the Veggietales movie, goes, "Our God is a God of second-chances." The Israelites failed time and time again to remain faithful to God's love and yet He chose them as His Son's people. St. Paul persecuted His Church and yet "I obtained mercy" (1 Timothy 1:16) because "Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief" (1 Tim 1:15).
God does not hate us when we sin, He hates our sin because it separates us from Him. He is restless until we return to Him, like the man who leaves ninety nine sheep in the desert to "go after that which was lost until he find it" (Luke 15:14), like a woman searching for a single coin, like a father running to meet his son.
We are the prodigal children of God. Time and time again we squander our inheritance on created things. We prefer our will to God's plan. But this sinfulness leaves us empty, so hungry that we want to eat "the husks the swine did eat" (Luke 15:16).
Unsatisfied in the flesh, we have nowhere else to turn but to the Father. And we fall on our knees in the Confessional, heavily burdened by our sins saying "Father, I have sinned before heaven, and before thee, I am not now worthy to be called thy son" (Luke 15:18).
The beauty of God's love is that He does not wait for us to climb up to Him; when we turn towards Him, he runs to meet us where we are. The Father rejoices for in our sin we had become dead in the spirit and now have come alive again.
Are you afraid of the Confessional? Don't be. It might be painful, but so is resetting a dislocated shoulder. Both are necessary for our health.
"So I say to you, there shall be joy before the angles of God upon one sinner doing penance" (Luke 15:10). God loves you so much that He eagerly awaits your repentance. He waits, the perfect Lover separated from His beloved.
God loves you. He loves you no matter who you are or what you have done. Sin is repulsive in His eyes, not because of our wickedness, but because it creates a wall between us and His Sacred Heart.
Remember that no matter how many friends you have, whether or not you feel appreciated or understood, regardless of if you feel totally alone, the One who created the universe loves you so much that He took on the weakness of our flesh and died on a Cross for you. He would have suffered the ignominy and torment of His Passion even if it was just for you alone.
To quote Veggietales yet again, "God made you special and He loves you very much."
DEUS VULT!
No comments:
Post a Comment