GOD IS LOVE
1 John 4:7-9
Mother Adela Galindo, SCTJM
For private use only -©
In St. John’s first letter, chapter 4, he
exclaims twice, “God is Love.” St. John, the beloved disciple- who
intimately partook in the mystery of love in the Heart of the
God-made-man, he who heard Love beating from Christ’s Heart as he
rested his head upon Christ’s chest in the cenacle, has wanted to
testify to men this great mystery of God: that God is Love!
According to a certain
tradition, as time passed the teaching of this apostle became daily
more simple; he spoke only of the love of God. Before this reality
one of his disciples complained to him and asked him, “Why do you
not speak about anything else?” St. John responded, “Because there
is nothing more important than to proclaim: God is
Love! Why did St. John consider this as most important? The
apostle explained it to St. Gertrude in an apparition: “It is
necessary to scream out to the whole world that God is Love… because
a world that so easily weakens in God’s love, can only be renewed,
be raised from its lethargy, be restored from its ruin and be
inflamed in the fire of Divine Love, when it knows the greatness of
this love.”
THE LOVE OF GOD IS A
MYSTERY
The love of God is a mystery… perhaps it is the most profound,
the most immeasurable, the most incomprehensible, for it deals with
the very essence of God: God is Love! It is a unfathomable love
because its depth is something no one can fully probe. It has a
height no one can fully climb. It has a length and a width no one is
capable of measuring completely. God is love; His essence is love…;
it’s not just that He loves us, but rather, that He is Love.
Everything that emanates from Him is love; there is nothing in Him
that is not love; His being is Love; all his interior activity is
love; all His external acts are love. My brothers and sisters, God
does not do any other thing than Love…and Love to the extreme. He
loves infinitely, He loves immutably, He loves eternally, He loves
faithfully and mercifully.
This love is the
ultimate cause of everything that exists. This love is the ultimate
cause of everything that occurs…it is the ultimate cause of our
existence. That is why after the human heart makes so many turns in
search for happiness and fulfillment, like the Israelites in the
dessert, after taking many turns the human heart finally realizes,
like they- that the Promised Land was so close. It is so close
because man’s happiness and fulfillment is to know that he is loved
by God. Man’s happiness is to know that he is loved by his Father
and his Creator.
Even if we are unable to
penetrate this mystery totally, God does want us to know that we are
loved. This knowledge causes a profound healing in the heart of
man. Knowing and living in this Love of God is the fullness of the
human heart. As St. Paul tells us, (Eph. Ch. 3) “That you, rooted
and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend with all
the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of
the love of Christ, love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may
be filled with all the fullness of God.” Only in God and in the
intimate knowledge of His love does man find his peace. Only in this
love does man find his peace, his self-actualization, his plenitude,
his most profound rest. Jesus tells us in Mt. Ch. 11 “Come to me,
all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt
11: 28).
St. Augustine prayed:
Oh God you have made us for yourself alone and our hearts will
remain restless until they rest in you.” In all his writings
St. Augustine asked the question of how man could find that true
happiness that he so desires. After much thought and many different
paths, St. Augustine concludes that the happiness of the human heart
lies in discovering God, and knowing that God is Love…and that God
loves him. And this love …this love of God … this Eternal love …this
imperishable love is: is the only love that is capable of
guaranteeing man his happiness. Because it is the only love that
excludes all fear of losing the beloved. It is the only guarantee
of man’s happiness because man always fears losing his beloved. And
the only love that excludes all fear of losing the beloved is the
love of God. That is why St. John tells us in his own first letter
and in the same Ch. 4 after he tells us twice that God is love, St.
John tells us these words, “There is no fear in love, but perfect
love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so
one who fears is not yet made perfect in love.”
Like St. John, his
holiness John Paul II, (and
this year we celebrate twenty-five years of his pontificate- so let
us thank the Holy Spirit for these twenty-five years)….since
his first day when he came out to the balcony at the Vatican to wave
at the people of God, the Pope exclaimed, “DO NOT BE AFRAID!
Open wide the doors of your hearts to the redemptive love of
Christ!” This “Do Not Be Afraid” of his Holiness has been
his continuous call. For the past twenty-five years he has repeated
it so many times, like an echo: DO NOT BE AFRAID! And why does the
Pope repeat DO NOT BE AFRAID so many times? Because God is love and
fear cannot be part of God’s love. Man should not be afraid, says
the Pope. He should not be afraid because he has a Father that loves
Him; because he has a Father that loves him to the point of giving
His only Son to save him.
The Holy Father tells us
in the book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, “Be Not
Afraid.” “You have a need to hear these words: each person, each
family, all peoples and nations of the whole world.” It is
necessary, we were told by the Pope, “that we resurge in the
consciousness that Someone exists that has man’s destiny in His
hands, the destiny of this world…. Someone who has the keys….
Someone who is the Alpha and the Omega of the history of man, be it
the individual’s history- your history, or the collective history.
And this Someone, the Pope tells us, this Someone who has
your individual and collective history in His hands…this someone is
LOVE! And because He is Love, His Holiness tells us, He is the only
one, attention: the only one who can be guarantee to us the words,
“Do NOT BE AFRAID!” (CUE, JPII).
GOD’ S LOVE
GUARANTEE’S MAN’S HAPPINESS
The Love of God is the guarantee of man’s happiness. St. Augustine
tells us in his Confessions: “The more I enter into you my
Lord…with my whole being, there will no longer be any sadness nor
trials for me, and my life, all full of you- will be fulfilled.”
(Conf. 10). It is the Love of God that makes the human heart find
its rest …its healing …its restoration. There is a reason why Psalm
61 tells us, “Rest only in God my soul because He is your only
Hope.” The love of God is a love that removes fear. Not the
fear that we sometimes experience for a moment…no, it removes the
fear that is deep within the heart of man. Fear that the Holy
Father tells us, “The man of today feels justified in
experiencing fear by the very things that he himself has created, by
what he himself has produced … and which have become everyday more
dangerous to himself….
Yes brothers and
sisters, if the Holy Father has been telling us for twenty-five
years, “Be Not Afraid,” it is because contemporary humanity is
afraid. It is afraid of itself. It is afraid of having constructed a
world without God, a world without His love. A world without God and
His love has grave consequences. We have separated ourselves from
the Love of God…brothers and sisters. And when we separate
ourselves from the love of God, we lose- says the Pope, “the axis of
our existence.” Everything turns into chaos. (JP II).
A few weeks ago I was
reading the news that many recognized scientist of the world were
concerned…. All of the astronomers of the world have said that there
is a great possibility that a meteor will hit the earth. They
explained in this article, the catastrophe that would be caused if a
meteor hit some part of the planet. And with alarming words they
said, “It would be chaos; the human destruction would be
incalculable; it would be a catastrophe with such impact that it
could take the earth out of its orbit, and that would bring
indescribable consequences.
I read this article and
with the seriousness that this requires, I directed myself towards
the Lord and I said, “My God we are so afraid that a meteor may fall
upon us that may take us out of our orbit. Yet, today’s humanity and
civilization has had a worse meteor that has already taken us out of
our orbit: the great crises of faith and abandonment of God and His
Love! Brothers and sisters, we are already taken out of our orbit;
our orbit is God. We have separated ourselves from the love of God
and all of humanity has been wiped away by the consequences of the
lack of love… because only God is love and only in God are we able
to love. We have separated ourselves from the love of God; we have
left the House of the Father believing that we could survive without
Him. And now we have to pickup the ruins …the painful ruins of
hearts so broken …of separated families… of divided families … of
divorced couples… of societies without morals…of nations in hate….
How is it possible for man today not to be afraid, if as we are told
by the Holy Father, “he is afraid of what he himself has caused?” He
is afraid to see what he is capable of being and doing without God?
Three days ago we heard
in the news that a mother entered her apartment and found her three
children decapitated. One hears this news, brothers and sisters, and
we are afraid of what man is capable of doing! We have seen the
concentration camps. We have seen the massacres in Africa, and we
are afraid of what man can do. We have seen the terrorists’ attempts
and we are afraid of what man can do. Man without God can do all of
this because the love of God does not live in him!
The only solution, the
only answer to the devastation of our civilization, the only healing
and restoration possible for our modern day culture is to recognize
that we have a Father that loves us, and that He is always ready,
because He is a faithful and Merciful Father, to accept the prodigal
son back home-the home of His Heart! My brothers and sisters, the
only solution is that we give our heart to the Heart of the Father…
repentant… like prodigal sons…to receive the embrace of the Father.
He is the only One who can, as He did in the beginning of Creation,
blow the Holy Spirit in us so that in all the world’s chaos, order
may enter! Genesis 1: says, “The earth was a formless wasteland, and
darkness covered the abyss…and God said, “Let there be light.” And
there was light. And everything began to have order.”
“Do Not Be Afraid!”-
cries loudly the Holy Father. Do Not Be Afraid of what modern man
has created. “Be Not Afraid” because our civilization’s crisis of
love can be healed by the love of God. The wounds of the hearts of
families, societies and nations can be healed by the love of God.
Brothers and sisters, our era has revealed the highest statistic
rates of depression, the greatest statistics of anguish, of panic
attacks, of anxiety. It is so horrible how much our brothers and
sisters suffer with these panics, with these fears. All of these
depressions that are manifesting themselves are, with few
exemptions, product of some deep fear hidden in the hearts of men.
All of our contemporary society’s sorrow is the result of one thing:
that we have profaned the word “Love.” It is a profanity because,
man, who has been created by love, who has been created to love, who
has been created to be the reflection of the love of God- when he
separates himself from God, when he does not allow himself to remain
in God (who is the fountain of Love), he loses his capacity to love
and worse still, he stomps on the gift of love. Only in God can we
love… because “Love is from God and He who remains in God remains
in love” (1 Jn 4), and “apart from Me you can do nothing.”(Jn
15).
ONLY THE LOVE
OF GOD HEALS THE WOUNDS IN THE HEART OF MAN
His Holiness told us in the year 2001, “Yes the love
of God renews all things; it is a love that embraces all men, and
embraces the entire man. It is a love that changes sorrow into joy,
darkness into light, death into life. In a world tainted by the
wounds of loneliness, says the Pope, by the wounds of suffering, of
fear and anguish, may God’s love, His truth, and His warmth shine.”
(JP II Aug 11, 2001). Why? Because only knowing that God is love and
that He loves us, will the wounds in the heart of man be healed.
THE LOVE OF GOD
RESTORES AND HEALS THE WOUNDS BECAUSE:
1. INFINITE
Why? -Because, God is infinite love. Write these down: “The
characteristics of the love of God.” God is infinite love. And why
does His infinite love heal us? Well, brothers and sisters, because
so much fear has been caused by the selfishness that limits love. “I
will love you -till death do us part.” What beautiful words are
pronounced in the marriage vows! I will love you- ‘till death do us
part.’ The limit of this covenant is death.
But, today’s world finds
that limits are much shorter and more vain; they are moved by pure
selfishness: “I will love you while you are healthy.” “I will love
you while I like what you cook for me.” “I will love you while I
don’t find someone I like more.” “I will love you if my commitment
is not a sacrifice.” “I will live my vows, (and this applies to all
vocations), while I am not asked for something that costs me.” It is
such a limited love. Today’s man is wounded and these deep wounds
can only be healed by the love of the Heart of God, because His
Love is infinite. In other words, it has no limits!
It is a love without conditions, without frontiers, without
divisions, without limits, it has no end. It is infinite, because it
is the fullness of love…total and absolute. It is a love that is for
all and for each one. It is infinite in its universality, because it
encompasses all men equally and it is also infinite because it is
for each person in particular. It is infinite because it encompasses
you. St. Thomas of Villanova said to the Lord, “You surpass all
barriers in loving me, Oh my God. What should I return to you for so
much love? You have made all in number, weight and measure, but you
have loved us without using number, weight or measure.
2. ETERNAL
The Love of God
is Eternal. So much fear is caused to the human heart to know that
love has been changed into something so ephemeral and of such a
short duration. “For always.” The, “for always” we used to say,
seems to have disappeared from human lips and hearts. To say “for
always” seems like too big a commitment. And my brothers and
sisters, the human heart suffers such anguish not knowing if his/her
spouse will be there next month, not knowing if friends will be
there tomorrow, parents not knowing if their children will be there
or if they will leave when they discipline them, or children not
knowing if they will have parents with whom to play with. Oh my
brothers and sisters, the lack of being able to see love as
something that lasts “for ever” has wounded our ability to trust…has
wounded our capacity to give ourselves fully. For we are afraid to
give ourselves away to someone we do not know whether or not they
will be there tomorrow. Love requires perseverance, for only in time
do we test that love is forever…and that it will be there forever.
How restful it is for the heart to know that I am loved forever.
That is why the only love that heals us is the love of God, because
the love of God is eternal; the love of God is outside of time; the
love of God has no past or future, it is an eternal present. It has
no beginning or end. It is without succession, it does not change…it
is always …always…always there for us. He has always loved us. And
brothers and sisters, if we truly think about it…our hearts would be
moved. God has loved us eternally. Before creating anything, He
already loved us. Before we existed, He loved us. Jeremiah 1 tells
us, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you… and before you
were born, I dedicated you.” Jeremiah 31 “I have loved you
eternally: that is why I have reserved graces for you…” Brothers
and sisters, we do not have to be afraid; we have been, and are
loved eternally! He will love us forever; He will be next to us
forever, to the point of telling us: “I will be with you until the
end of time.”
3.
IMMUTABLE
And it is an immutable love… in other
words, it does not change. How quickly… and that is why we are so
wounded-brothers and sisters…. how quickly is human love transformed
into envy, and even into hate. (Do we not see it in divorce courts
when they who swore to love each other forever are fighting? Those
who swore that they would share all of their goods forever, now
fight in court to see who keeps more money?) How quickly do
sentiments change; all of a sudden your business partner is your
enemy… your brother is your enemy … your neighbor … brothers and
sisters from prayer groups …even the person you swore to love
forever is your enemy. How quickly love changes to hate. We do not
see the change in our sentiments. We judge a person good when they
do me a good, but she is problematic if she causes me a problem.
Persons are seen as beautiful if they treat us beautifully. Have we
not seen love convert to hate? When because of envy, my best friend
stops being my friend? We live in fear trying to appear to be
something or someone, so that according to how they see me they will
treat me?
And yet, the Love of God
is immutable, meaning, it never changes; it does not alter; it does
not decrease; it is stable and constant. It does not change
according to how we respond. It is so difficult for us to
understand this dimension of God’s love because we are not like
this. How difficult it is to comprehend that God never avenges our
wrongs. His love does not depend upon our goodness or our actions,
in order to be good with us. He is never disillusioned with our
weaknesses; on the contrary, He comes and saves us with His
strength. He never separates Himself from us when we offend Him; He
is not cold with us; He does not count the bad; He never abandons us
…even when we abandon Him. This stability, this infinite and
eternal stability is His immutability. It is a love that never
changes; it is above our inconstancies, our sins and our
infidelities. And it is this stable love that heals the heart of
man. Song of Songs 8 says: “For stern as death is love, …Deep
waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away” In Isaiah
54 the Lord tells us, “Though the mountains leave their place and
the hills be shaken, My love shall never leave you…” And does
St. Theresa of Avila not exhort us to trust in that immutability of
God? “Let nothing disturb you, nothing scare you, everything passes,
God is not silent.”
4. FAITHFUL
It is a faithful love. Is not human
infidelity one of the greatest causes of sorrow in the human heart?
My brothers and sisters, is not true love tested during
difficulties, on the cross, in temptations and in the inconvenient
situations? Is not love’s fidelity tested when it requires of me a
personal sacrifice for me to continue loving? Well, many are not
passing the test. Aat the very first moment of difficulty, they
abandon their commitment to love.
Oh brothers and sisters,
how much it hurts to feel abandoned by one’s loved one. Infidelity
wounds and it is an even greater wound when one tries to justify it…
when infidelity is justified with another love. And the Lord knows
of this double wound. In Jeremiah 2 “Two evils have my people
done: they have forsaken me- the source of living waters; and they
have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water.”
(Jer. 2:13). Infidelity is so painful. Infidelity is so painful
at a moment of weakness, at a moment of illness. How many spouses,
because they are no longer as agile, beautiful, or handsome- are
abandoned … or the friend who stops being my friend because I have
no more money, or elderly parents abandoned because they are a
nuisance, or the rejected or aborted children because they change
their parents lives, the sick who we want to disconnect from
nutritional instruments because their life is a burden?
Yet, the Love of God is
faithful. And we so need to recognize the greatness of a love that
is faithful. In Exodus 34:6 Moses invoked the Lord and he exclaimed:
“The Lord, our God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and
abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love
for a thousand generations.” The love of God is faithful forever
and under any circumstance. He does not abandon us even in the midst
of our abandonment. He is not unfaithful even with our infidelities.
The more we distance ourselves from Him, the more he comes to draw
us to Himself. The more we get lost, the more He comes to seek us.
When we are wounded, He comes to heal us. When we are oppressed, He
comes to liberate us. When we want to let go, He comes and ties us
with strings of Love. Is this not the story of salvation, the
revelation of a faithful and merciful Love of the Father for His
children? And even in spite of receiving so much love, we can see
that even from the time of Genesis, humanity rebels, forgets and
separates itself from this love? Yet the Father never abandons us,
He does not settle for having lost his children. The Father
profoundly suffers for our rebelliousness and our infidelity; He
suffers because He loves us. But His love is infinite, perfect and
merciful and that is why the more we distance ourselves, the more He
seeks us attracting us to His love.
The Father’s love is so
great that is Hosea 11 He says: “When Israel was a child I loved
her and from Egypt I called my son. But the more I called them the
more they distanced themselves from me. I taught Ephraim to walk,
taking him by the hand, but they did not recognize that I watched
over them. With human ropes and strings of love I drew them, but
they have refused to convert. But how can I leave you Ephraim, how
can I turn you over Israel? I am your Father….” God’s love is so
faithful, that even to this unfaithful people who constantly broke
His covenants, God wants to make of her- “His spouse” ( His people).
He wants to unite himself with His people with strings of perfect
fidelity. In Hosea: 2:22 the Lord says, “I will espouse you to
me forever; I will espouse you to me in justice and right, in love
and compassion, I will espouse you to me in fidelity, and you shall
know the Lord.” When through disobedience she lost her
friendship, you did not abandon her to the power of death, rather,
you reiterated your covenant with men. (Roman Missal).
5. MERCIFUL
LOVE
God’s love is a merciful Love. God’s love
is not afraid of weakness; this is one of the greatest fears of our
time. That is why JPII is a great witness, because he presents
himself to the world as weak, weak in what the world wants to see.
It considers him fragile. Is it not scary for us to have others
discover our frailties, or for them to discover our incompetence,
our limits our weaknesses? Why are we afraid? We are afraid that it
will be immediately utilized against us; it will be slapped in our
face. We are afraid they will criticize our weakness and no one will
help us to come out of them. We live in a very hard era. It is it
hard because it is hard on whom it wishes and is extremely flexible
with whom it wishes. That is why justice in our era is not truly
justice, since it is not being regulated by an authentic mercy. Our
era lives a crisis of mercy; it propagates a false mercy. Everything
is permitted; everyone is free to do what they want; it is not
necessary to place norms, nor restrictions. But when the first thing
that is done to us or when someone we do not believe should have
fallen, or that could fall -actually does fall, then all the forces
of the world come against them to squash and irremediably condemn;
we make sure we judge and submerge him/her forever. What a paradox!
My brothers and sisters
it would seem during these times that everyone is vigilant to see
the faults and weakness of others. Pastors and leaders of
communities come to mind. Many times I have spoken with priests and
asked them, “What has been the greatest sorrow in your years as
priest?” All have said the same thing to me: “the weight that no
matter what I do there will always be faithful who will criticize
something.” We should instead be praying for them! Brothers and
sisters, if the priest kneels, it is because he kneeled; if he does
not kneel, then it is because he does not kneel; if he sings,
because he sings; and if he does not sing, because he does not! We
should stop this hardness of heart! Man’s justice is so hard because
it has no mercy. David would say, “I am in great anguish. It is
better to fall into the hands of Yahweh who is merciful, than to
fall into the hands of men.” That is how it feels in our world
today. We applaud permissiveness, we exalt an immoral life, but when
someone we believe that should not have fallen…falls …he/she is
exposed on the front page in every newspaper of the world….
Yet, God’s love is
merciful. Slow to anger, rich in mercy. God is love and when He
gives Himself to man, who is sinful, weak and miserable, it becomes
mercy. The love that touches man is mercy. When God is loving man
….the action of God loving him is mercy! JPII said in his encyclical
Dives in Misericordia that mercy is love’s second name. The
Holy Father said: “It is a sentiment born from the maternal womb
or from the heart of a Father. (Is 49) St. Francis de Sales
explains that even if God had not created man He would always
love in perfect charity, but in reality it would not be mercy, for
mercy can only be exercised over misery…. Our misery is the throne
of God’s mercy. We need so much to know that we have a Merciful
Father so we can rest, rest in the reality …brothers and
sisters….that we are weak, that we are fragile. Let us not pretend
to be something else because it is not true. I can rest in knowing
that my reality is that I am a sinner, fragile; I am weak. But there
is where the loving mercy of the Father is made manifest. For our
weakness is not an impediment to his love, rather it is just the
opposite: the more misery- the more Mercy. Jesus said to St.
Faustina: “Human misery is not an obstacle to my Mercy…my
daughter write that the greater the misery of the soul, the more
right it has to my Mercy….invite all souls to trust in the
inconceivable abyss of my mercy. (D. 1182)
Isn’t the revelation of
God’s mercy given to St. Faustina at the same time as World War II
was taking place… in the midst of man’ sinfulness… an example of the
Father’s love? Did it not take place in Krakow just a few
kilometers from some concentration camps? Because were sin and
darkness abounds, grace and the merciful love of God abounds all the
more. “My daughter, say that I am Love and mercy itself.”
My brothers and sisters,
how much we need to be healed. We have such hardness in our hearts;
we say that whatever weakness we have is a title, a label for us. We
need to go to the Father’s Heart who will take us in that misery but
then He lifts us…because He never leaves us in our misery. It is
love that heals, and it heals the wounds of the heart caused because
of today’s world.
To a generation that has desired to turn away from God, and to
today’s humanity, who in great part is submerged in sin, to us who
bring so many wounds in our hearts caused by our own hardness, or by
others’ hardness, to a generation that has grown cold to His Mercy,
God the Father says: “I wish the world would know my Mercy”…
“May the sinner not be afraid to come close to Me. I burn with
the flames of My Mercy that I desire to pour out upon humanity.” (D
50). “Look my mercy is bigger than your misery and of the whole
world’s.” “I desire that the whole world would know my mercy; I
desire to grant unimaginable graces to souls who trust in my Mercy.”
(D. 687). “Invite souls to a great confidence in my unfathomable
mercy. May the weakest, sinful souls not be afraid to come to Me,
although it would have more sins than there are grains of sand on
earth, everything would be drowned in the abyss of My mercy.” (D
1059). Let us not be afraid to throw our faults, our past
sins, our wounds, and our anguish in the merciful love of God.
St. Therese would say: “When we throw our faults with a total
filial confidence in the devouring flame of love, how will they not
be completely consumed?
IT IS LOVE OF A
FATHER THAT NEVER FORGETS HIS CHILDREN
God loves us with the heart of a Father.
Isaiah 9 gives Him the title He always had- Father. It is a
love that is paternal and His paternity is from always and forever.
He loves us with a paternal love like the first letter of John says,
“So much has the Father loved us
that He has called us children of God, and so we
are.”
Being our Father, having
created us for love and making us in His image and likeness, He has
constantly suffered the fact that we constantly abandon Him. He
suffers the loss of His children, who are seduced by God’s enemy;
they mistrust Gods’ love and his wisdom. That is why we hear so
often in Scripture how the Father cares for us and warns us that
there exists a thief that wants to steal us away and separate us
from His paternal love. Yet, each time that man abandons the
Father, the Father comes in search of His children.
About 2 or 3 days ago
the gospel was John 17 and I was moved when I heard him proclaim
Christ’s priestly prayer. Jesus says: “Father, in your name I have
taken care of those you gave me. Look at what Jesus and the
Father were saying to each other. It means that before Jesus came
here to earth the Father said to Him, “Watch them as I have guarded
them.” And now Jesus is reporting to His Father: “Father I have
guarded them.” Jesus, the Face and Heart of the Father took care of
us. What love! It is a love of a Father who cares for His children
with great tenderness, who sympathizes from the depths of His being
for His children, like Isaiah 49: 15 says, “Can a mother forget her
infant be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should
she would forget, I will never forget you. Look I have carved you in
the palm of my hands.”
A FATHER THAT
COMES IN SEARCH OF HIS LOST CHILDREN
Brothers and sisters…He is a Father that always goes in search of
His children. And His Holiness John Paul II tells us in Tertio
Millenium Adveniente: “God in Christ not only speaks to man but
comes in search of him. This search is born from the most intimate
depths of God, and it culminates in the Incarnation of the Word. If
God looks for man, who is created in his image and likeness, He does
it because He loves him eternally. God moved by His heart of a
Father, searches for man. Why does He look for him? …Because man has
turned away from Him. Man has allowed himself to be misled by God’s
enemy. So God looks for man through the Son; God wants to induce him
to leave his evil ways, ways he tends to continue to delve in deeper
and deeper. Making man abandon evil means to defeat evil extended in
human history. The defeat of evil- this is Redemption! So John Paul
II says that God goes in search of man because man has lost Him, and
He is not resigned to loosing His children- the children He Loves!
STORY OF A
FATHER WHO LOOKS FOR HIS SON
I read in Scott Hahn’s book, A Father
Who Keeps His Promises, a beautiful story that is appropriate
for the message that I want to transmit. It occurred in Armenia in
1989. There was a terrible earthquake; in seconds the city was
flattened. The people were confused, and all of a sudden they see
this man in anguish. The man ran around like a crazy person through
the streets. They asked him where he was going. He was going to the
school where his son was at. They asked him to stop. And he said
that he could not. He said, “When my son was born I made him a
promise…I promised that no matter what happened, I will always be by
his side.” As he ran he only remembered the promise he made to his
son. The man reached the school and all that is left …brothers and
sisters…is ruins. The building was completely crumbled. The man
with his paternal love begins to excavate the ruins with his own
bare hands. He digs and digs and digs removing bricks, stones,
walls, rocks…. The people who came by stare at him as if he were
crazy. What person could possibly be alive in that place completely
destroyed? The father would not listen to their arguments. He told
them, “You can either argue or help me.” The few who decided to help
soon became tired and gave up. But the man kept digging…because he
had promised his son that he would never leave him. Hours passed…12,
18, 24, 36 hours…and the father continued. At the 36th hour, he
finally heard a noise… and he yelled, “Armando!
Armando!”
And a very fragile voice was heard that came from the
ruins that cried out: “Daddy… Daddy.” The man, with the little
strength he had left, lifted a huge obstacle …and screamed:
“Armando! Armando!” Then he pulled out his son. Then the son with
the little strength he has left helps his father pull out, one by
one from the darkness, the trembling voices of the other classmates
still in the ruins. One by one he pulls them out: 14 of the 33
classmates survived. When they were all out Armando tells his
classmates: “You see, I told you I told you …my Father would not
forget us!
Brothers and
sisters…this is the kind of trust that we should have …Armando’s
faith in his Father, that even if earthquakes should come…. He will
be there. Yesterday a movie came out about a wave that covers
cities…come whatever may come, even if we are in ruins, our Father
will not forget us! Because this is the kind of Father we have. He
loves us in such a way that He sends His only Son to save us.
THE FATHER
LOVES US IN SUCH A WAY
St John tells us in John 3: “For God so loved the world,” in other
words, we must know how the Father loved the world…in such a way ….
It is like saying He loves us to such an extreme… “For God so
loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who
believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”
One day I read as story
…one of those stories that are spread through the internet. When I
began to read it, brothers and sisters, I could not detain my tears.
It caused me great pain and it allowed me to capture a glance of
what the Father feels. I will explain it to you as quickly as
possible. But I want you to hear it from the point of view of a
father or mother’s heart.
One day the news surges
in the whole world that a terrible epidemic has begun to develop in
a town in India. No one pays much attention to it, but a few days
later the newspapers announce that millions of people have died in
India and that contamination has already spread to other countries.
Personnel from the
United States Center for Control of Infectious Diseases travel to
India to investigate this epidemic, which they have called the
“mysterious influenza.” Soon, before the negative results of the
experts, the European countries decide to close all their borders
and cancel all flights that have contact with the countries that are
affected. But it was too late; the news reports that a woman died
in a French hospital with the epidemic. A few days later the
epidemic has spread throughout Europe. Immediately the United
States closes it borders and stops all international flights.
The whole world enters
into a state of panic and the epidemic quickly invades the United
States and spreads throughout the whole world. Even the smallest
neighborhood in the world is alarmed by the fear of this illness.
Unceasingly, all the scientists of the world try to find an antidote
that might cure the illness. All efforts are in vain. Suddenly, a
group of scientists are able to decipher the DNA code of the virus
in order to prepare the cure for the virus. But to prepare the cure
they need blood that is pure, blood that has not been infected by
the virus. All of the hospitals place an ordinance that everyone who
is not sick must do a blood test.
A man comes as a
volunteer with his family, asking himself where will all this end
up. When he is at the hospital he hears that they call out a name,
to his astonishment it was the name of his youngest son. The boy
grabs his father’s pants and says: “Daddy… No… No…No…I am afraid.”
But the father tells him: “Do Not Be Afraid…they are only going to
do a test.” They took the boy’s blood and they discovered that the
boy has pure blood; they found the blood to make the antidote. In 5
minutes the doctors return to the father and tell him: “Your son’
blood is clear; it is perfect for the antidote and to eradicate the
mysterious influenza.”
The news spreads
everywhere; people cheered, people laughed and prayed with joy. Yet,
the doctor approaches the father once again and tells him: “I need
you to sign the authorization to draw your son’s blood.” As he read
the contract the father realizes that the line where it said the
amount of blood is blank. So the father asks the doctor: “Why is it
blank?” And the doctor tells him: “We did not think that it was
going to be a boy, we were not ready for this but …we will need to
draw it all….
The father cannot
believe what he is hearing. He cannot contain the tears…and he says,
“No, he is my son.” But the doctor insists: “Do you understand many
lives will be saved…the whole world will be saved; we need it all.”
The father asks: “Can’t we give him a blood transfusion? But the
doctor says no, because all bloods are contaminated and he continues
to insist for him to sign because the whole world needs his son’s
blood. In silence and trembling… barely able to hold the pen… the
father knowing that he was sacrificing his son…signs. The doctor
asks him if he wants to spend a few minutes alone with his son. He
walks towards the emergency room where his son is sitting on a bed.
The father comes close to speak with his son. The son was there
asking his father, “What is happening daddy … I am afraid?” The
father takes his son’s hand and tells him that he loves him, and now
more than ever. He tells him: “Do Not Be Afraid….I will always be
with you.” At that moment the doctor arrives. He asks the father to
leave for they must begin the process since everyone in the world is
dying. He takes the father out…and the father must turn his back on
his son and leave his son. As they are taking the son away the son
yells desperately: “…Daddy, daddy why are you leaving me…why are you
abandoning me?”
The boy gives all of his
blood….
A week later they gave a
ceremony to celebrate and honor the boy. Yet the father observes
that very few people attend. Some do not go because they prefer to
sleep-in late, others because they went fishing, others because they
were going to watch a football game. Some do attend but they are
distracted. Still others go but with a fake smile acting as if they
cared. So the father goes in the midst of all those people and
starts shouting: “My son…my son…was the one who died for you. He
died so that you could all be saved…. How is it possible that you do
not care…?”
I think brothers and
sisters that this is how the Father feels; perhaps this is what He
would like to say to us now. I think this is how the Father felt
when we saw in the movie the Passion when Jesus expires and we see a
tear fall down from heaven; it is the Father’s tear…. He has loved
us so much that He gave us the blood of His Son to take away the
sickness of our heart. He has loved us in such a way that He gave
His only Son.
God is Love! God is
Love! If that does not move you, brothers and sisters, nothing will
move us. If that does not heal our hearts there is no psychologist
that will be able to heal it. If to know that you are loved
eternally…infinitely…if to know that you are loved immutably,
faithfully and mercifully does not heal us…what will heal us…? If
seeing the Father take His scared child in His arms …does not heal
us…what will heal us…?
God is a Father and He
is a Father that is Love. And the reason for our existence is to
discover this Love. This is man’s happiness, this is man’s healing
and this is man’s fulfillment- to know that God loves him. Knowing
that Love is the one that moves all things; He is the one who moves
your life; He is the one who moves your history…the one who moves
the history of the world. Let us discover our own history in the
light of His Love. Let us bring here today….our history, our past,
present and future history. Let us bring it to the infinite ocean of
his merciful, faithful, infinite, eternal and immutable love. Offer
to the Father your miseries…. What are your miseries if not a little
drop in the ocean of His Merciful Love? God’s love is the only one
that guarantees happiness to the human heart, He is the only one
that can restore all things; He is the only one that can make us
capable of resting and trusting. Let us spend our life like St. Mary
Magdalene -contemplating that love: the breadth, and length, and
height, and depth of that love. And may this contemplation take us
to a profound interior healing…because God is Love! And even if we
have forgotten Him, even if we might have been unfaithful people- He
is Faithful. Even if we might have made thousands of turns…having
had the promise land right before us…. Even if we have rebelled,
even if we might have abandoned Him- He wants us to be His Bride! He
is so faithful that no matter what we might have done…or do, God is
immutable. He Loves us….always…because His Love is faithful.
And in the end we say
like St. Augustine: “Oh God you have made us for thyself alone,
and our hearts will remain restless until they rest in thee.”
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
Copyright © 2006- SCTJM
