GOD IS LOVE
Mother Adela, SCTJM
Foundress
For private use only -©
In St. John’s first
letter he exclaimed twice, “God is Love” (4:8:16). St. John, the
beloved disciple – who intimately partook in the mystery of love in
the Heart of the God-made-man, who heard Love beating from Christ’s
Heart as he rested his head upon Christ’s chest in the Cenacle –
wanted to testify to men this great mystery of God: God is Love!
According to a
certain tradition, as time passed, the teaching of this Apostle
daily became simpler; he spoke only of the love of God. About this
reality one of his disciples complained to him and asked, “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 declines 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, and the most incomprehensible, for it deals with the
very essence of God: God is Love! It is an 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 is
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, and 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 of happiness and fulfillment – like the Israelites in the
desert – the human heart finally realizes, like they did, that the
Promised Land is 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 fulfillment of the human heart. As St. Paul prays in
Ephesians, “that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have
strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth
and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that
surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness
of God” (3:17-19). 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-fulfillment, his plenitude, his most profound
rest. Jesus tells us in the Gospel of Matthew, “Come to me, all you
who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (11:28).
St. Augustine prayed, “Oh God, you have made us for thyself
alone, and our hearts will remain restless until they rest in thee”
(Confessions. Book I, Ch. I). In all his writings St.
Augustine asked the question of how man could find the true
happiness he so desires. After much thought and many different
paths, St. Augustine concluded 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 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, after St. John tells us twice in the same
chapter of his first letter that God is love, he next gives 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” (4:18).
Like St. John, His Holiness John Paul II, from the first day of his
pontificate (of which we will celebrate 25 years this year; let us
give thank to the Holy Spirit for these 25 years), when he came out
on the balcony of the Vatican to wave at the people of God,
exclaimed, “DO NOT BE AFRAID! Open wide the doors of your
hearts to the redemptive love of Christ!” (October 22, 1978).
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. Man 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.
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.” (cf.) It is the Love of God
that allows the human heart to find its rest, its healing, its
restoration. There is a reason why Psalm 62 tells us, “Rest only
in God my soul because He is your only hope” (vs. 6). The love
of God is a love that removes fear. This is not the fear that we
sometimes experience for a moment; no, it removes the fear that is
deep within the heart of man. The Holy Father describes this fear:
“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 every day more dangerous to himself”
(cf. Redemptor hominis, 15).
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, and everything turns into chaos (RH, 15-16).
A few weeks ago I
was reading a news article that was speaking about a concern of many
well-recognized scientists throughout the world. Most of the
astronomers throughout the world have said that there exists a great
possibility of a meteor hitting the earth. In this article they
explained the catastrophe that would result 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 it would bring indescribable consequences.”
I read this article, and, with the seriousness that this requires, I
directed myself towards the Lord and said, “My God, we are so afraid
that a meteor may fall upon us and take us out of our orbit. Yet,
today’s humanity and civilization has been hit with a worse meteor
that has already taken us out of our orbit: the great crisis of
faith and abandonment of God and His Love!” Brothers and sisters,
already we have been 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 this 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 pick up the ruins…the painful ruins of broken hearts,
of separated families, of divided families, of divorced couples, of
societies without morals, of nations living 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” (RH,
15)? Man today 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 the midst of all the world’s chaos, order
may enter! “The earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness
covered the abyss…then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was
light” (Gen 1:2-3). And everything began to have order.
“Do Not Be Afraid!” the Holy Father loudly cries. ‘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, anguish, panic
attacks, and anxiety. It is so horrible how much our brothers and
sisters suffer with these panics, with these fears. All of this
depression that manifests itself, with few exceptions, is a product
of some deep fear hidden in the hearts of men. All the sorrow of our
contemporary society is the result of one thing: we have profaned
the word “love.” It is a profanity because when 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 – separates himself from God
and does not allow himself to remain in God (who is the fountain of
Love); he then loses his capacity to love, and, worse still, he
tramples on the gift of love. Only in God can we love because
“God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in
him” (1 Jn 4:16 ), and “apart from Him we can do nothing” (cf. Jn
15:5).
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, by the wounds of
suffering, fear and anguish, may God’s love, truth, and warmth
shine” (cf. Message to the Congregation of the Sons of Merciful
Love, Aug. 11). Why? Because only by 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 IT IS:
1. INFINITE
Why? Because God is infinite Love. Write this 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…until death do us part.” What beautiful words are
pronounced in the marriage vows! “I will love you, and until 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 until I 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) as
long as 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 each and every one of us. 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 found in the human heart when it sees that love has
been changed into something so ephemeral and of such a short
duration. “Forever.” The “forever” we used to say seems to have
disappeared from human lips and hearts. To say “forever” seems like
too big a commitment. And my brothers and sisters, the human heart
suffers such anguish not knowing – spouses not knowing if their
husband or wife will be there next month; people 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; children not knowing if they will have parents with whom to
play or to live. Oh my brothers and sisters, the lack of being able
to see love as something that lasts “forever” has wounded our
ability to trust, has wounded our capacity to give ourselves fully.
For we are afraid to give ourselves away to someone that we do not
know with certainty will be there tomorrow. Love requires
perseverance, for only with time can we test if love is forever –
and will be there forever. How restful it is for our hearts to know
that we are loved forever. This 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 this our hearts will be moved. God has loved us
eternally. Before creating anything, He already loved us. Before we
existed, He loved us. The prophet Jeremiah tells us, “Before I
formed you in the womb I knew you…and before you were born, I
dedicated you” (1:5)…“I
have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued
my faithfulness to you” (31:3). Brothers and sisters, we do
not have to be afraid; we have always been and are
loved eternally! He will love us forever; He will be next to us
forever, and so He tells us, “I will be with you until the end of
time” (cf. Mt 28:20).
3. IMMUTABLE
God’s Love is an immutable love…in other
words, it does not change. How quickly – and this
is why we are so wounded brothers and
sisters – how quickly is human love transformed into envy and even
hate. (Do we not see it in divorce courts when those who swore to
love each other forever are fighting? When 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…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 people
good when they do us good, but they are problematic if they cause us
problems. 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? When we live in fear,
trying to appear to be something or someone so that people will
treat me according to how they see me?
And yet, the Love of God is immutable, meaning it never changes; it
does not alter; it does not decrease. Instead, 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 says, “For stern as death is love…Deep waters
cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away” (8:6-7). In Isaiah
the Lord tells us, “Though the mountains leave their place and
the hills be shaken, My love shall never leave you” (54:10). And
does not St. Teresa of Avila exhort us to trust in that immutability
of God? “Let nothing disturb you; let nothing frighten you.
Everything passes. God never changes” (from a poem found in
her prayer book).
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
inconvenient situations? Is not love’s fidelity tested when it
requires of me a personal sacrifice to continue loving? Well many
are not passing the test. At 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 ones. 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
we read, “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” (vs.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 what about the
friend who stops being my friend because I have no more money; or
elderly parents abandoned because they are a nuisance; or children
who are rejected or aborted because they will change their parents
lives; or the sick we want to disconnect from nutritional provisions
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 Moses invoked the
Lord and He exclaimed, “The Lord, your God is merciful and
gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and
faithfulness, continuing his steadfast love for a thousand
generations” (cf. 34:6). The love of God is faithful forever and
under any circumstance. He does not abandon us even in the midst of
our abandonment of Him. He is not unfaithful in spite of 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 binds 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, do we not see that, even since 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 He says, “When Israel was a child
I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them,
the farther they went from me…Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to
walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with
bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his
cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know
that I was their healer…How could I give you up, O Ephraim, or
deliver you up, O Israel?” (Hos 11:1-4,8). God
is saying to Israel and to us, “I am your Father.”
His love is so faithful that, despite the constant breaking of His
covenants, God wants to make Israel “His spouse.” He wants to unite
himself to His people with strings of perfect fidelity. In Hosea 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” (2:21-22).
“Even when he disobeyed you and lost your friendship you did not
abandon him to the power of death, but helped all men to seek and
find you” (Roman Missal, Eucharistic Prayer IV).
5. MERCIFUL LOVE
God’s love is a merciful Love. God’s love is not afraid of weakness,
which is one of the greatest fears of our time. That is why John
Paul II is a great witness; he presents himself to the world as weak
– weak in what the world wants to see. The world considers him
fragile. Is it not scary for us to have others discover our
frailties, our incompetence, our limits or 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 overcome them. We
live in a very hard era. It is it hard because it is hard on whom it
wishes and extremely flexible with whom it wishes. That is why
justice in our era is not truly justice; it is not being regulated
by an authentic mercy. Our era lives in 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 or
restrictions. But as soon as something is done to us or someone
falls that we do not believe could or should have fallen, then all
the forces of the world come against the other to squash and
irremediably condemn; we make sure we judge and submerge him or her
forever. What a paradox!
My brothers and sisters, it would seem that during these times
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 a 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, he sings; and if he does not sing, he does not!
We should stop this hardness of heart! Man’s justice is so hard
because it has no mercy. David said, “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” (cf. 2 Sam 24:14). That is how it feels
in our world today. We applaud permissiveness, we exalt an immoral
life, but when someone falls that we believe should not have fallen,
he or she is exposed on the front page of every newspaper in the
world.
However, God’s love is merciful; He is “slow to anger and rich in
mercy” (Neh 9:17; Ex 34:6; Num 14:18; Ps: 86:16; 103:8; 145:8; Wis
15:1; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2). God is Love (1 Jn 4:8), and when He
gives Himself to man who is sinful, weak and miserable, this love
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 (no.7). The Holy Father said that this mercy is both
maternal in character, born from a “maternal womb” (Is 49:15), and
paternal, born from the heart of a Father” (no.15). St. Francis
de Sales explains that "If God had not created man He would still
indeed have been perfect in goodness, but He would not have been
actually merciful, since mercy can only be exercised toward the
miserable…Our misery is the throne of God's mercy" (Spiritual
Conferences, conference ii). 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, that I am fragile,
that I am weak. But here 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 told St. Faustina that human misery is not an obstacle to
His Mercy: “My daughter, write that the greater the misery of a
soul, the greater its right to My mercy; [urge] all souls to trust
in the unfathomable abyss of My mercy” (Diary, 1182).
Was not the revelation of God’s mercy given to St. Faustina at the
same time World War II was taking place… in the midst of man’s
sinfulness…as an example of the Father’s love? Did it not take place
in Krakow just a few kilometers from concentration camps? Where sin
and darkness abounds, grace and the merciful love of God abounds all
the more (Rom 5:20). “Tell [all people], My daughter, that I am
Love and Mercy itself” (Diary, 1074).
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 up…because He never leaves us in our
misery. It is love that heals, and it heals the wounds of the heart
caused by today’s
world.
God the Father says: “I wish the world would know my Mercy. He
says this to today’s humanity, a generation that has desired to
turn from God and is in great part submerged in sin; to us who bring
so many wounds in our hearts caused by our own hardness or by the
hardness of others; to a generation that has grown cold to His
Mercy. He tells us, “Let the sinner not be afraid to approach Me.
The flames of mercy are burning Me – clamoring to be spent; I want
to pour them out upon these souls” (Diary, 50)…“My mercy is greater
than your sins and those of the entire world” (D. 1484)…“I desire
that the whole world know my infinite mercy. I desire to grant
unimaginable graces to those souls who trust in my Mercy” (D.
687)…“Encourage souls to place great trust in My fathomless mercy.
Let the weak, sinful soul have no fear to approach Me, for even if
it had more sins than there are gains of sand in the world, all
would be drowned in the immeasurable depths of My mercy” (Diary,
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?” (Letter of June 6, 1897).
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 (vs.5). 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” (cf.
1 Jn, 3:1).
Being our Father,
having created us for love and making us in His image and likeness,
He has constantly suffered over the fact that we constantly abandon
Him. He suffers the loss of His children, who are seduced by His
enemy; they mistrust His 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 who wants to steal us and separate us from His
paternal love. Yet, each time that man abandons the Father, the
Father comes in search of His children.
About two or three days ago the gospel was John 17, and I was moved
when I heard the priest proclaim Christ’s priestly prayer. Jesus
says, “Father, in your name I have taken care of those you
gave me”
(cf. 11-12). 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 49:15-16 says, “Can a mother forget her infant, be without
tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will
never forget you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have written
your name.”
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, “In
Jesus Christ God not only speaks to man but also seeks him
out…It is a search which begins in the heart of God and
culminates in the Incarnation of the Word. If God goes in search of
man, created in his own image and likeness, he does so because he
loves him eternally…God seeks man out, moved by his fatherly heart”
(no.7). 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 into which he tends to delve deeper and deeper.
Making man abandon evil means to defeat the evil that has been
extended in human history. The defeat of evil – this is Redemption!
Therefore, 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
(pg 13-14), 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 saw this man in anguish. The
man was running like a crazy person through the streets. They asked
him where he was going. He was going to the school where his son
was. 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 would 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 was left, brothers and sisters, was ruins. The
building had completely crumbled. The man, with his paternal love,
began to excavate the ruins with his own bare hands. He dug and dug
and dug, removing bricks, stones, walls, rocks. The people who came
by stared at him as if he was 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 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 had left, helped
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
pulled them out: 14 of the 33 classmates survived. When they were
all out Armando told 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 believes He will be there even if
earthquakes should come. 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 his
Gospel, “For God so loved the world” (3:16); in other words, we must
know how the Father loved the world. “So loved” is like saying He
loves us to the 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” (Jn 3:16).
One day I read a
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 affected
countries. But it is 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 them call out a name; to
his astonishment it is 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 take the boy’s blood and they discover 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’s blood is
clear; it is perfect for the antidote and to eradicate the
mysterious influenza.”
The news spreads
everywhere; people cheer, laugh and pray 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 reads 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 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 is 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 is 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 him. 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
have 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, in the movie The Passion, Jesus
expired 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 us, 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 knowing
that you are loved eternally…infinitely…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. We must come to know that Love is the one that moves
all things, that He is the one who moves our lives, that He is the
one who moves our individual histories and 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 – its breadth, and length, and
height, and depth (Eph 3:17-19). 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 Promised 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 will say like St. Augustine, “Oh God, you have
made us for thyself alone, and our hearts will remain restless until
they rest in thee” (Confessions, Book I, Ch. 1).
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