Presence of God

O my God, my only love, kindle in me the fire of Your charity.

Meditation

I. Sacred Scripture tells us : "God is charity" (1 Jn 4,16). God is love, eternal, infinite, substantial love. Just as everything in God is beautiful, good, perfect, and holy, so also everything in God is love—His beauty, wisdom, power, providence; even His justice is love. Love is perfect and holy when it turns with all its strength toward the sovereign good, and prefers it to every other good. This is the love with which God loves Himself, precisely because He is the one supreme and eternal Good, to which no other good can be preferred. The infinite love which God has for Himself is therefore, by its very nature, completely holy and has nothing in common with what we call self-love or egoism, that disordered love by which we prefer ourselves— more or less, and sometimes wholly—to God the supreme good. We are egoists because we have a tendency to love ourselves to the exclusion of every other affection, but God is so free from every shadow of egoism that, even though He loves Himself infinitely and is wholly satisfied with His infinite good, He tends by nature to diffuse His love outside Himself. It is thus that God loves creatures; He does not love them because there is some good in them which attracts Him, but it is He Himself who, loving them, creates good in them. "The love of God," says St. Thomas, "is the cause which infuses and creates good in creatures" (Ia, q. 20, a. 2, co.). See, then, how God loves us, with love entirely gratuitous and free, with love supremely pure, with love that is both benevolence and beneficence : benevolence which desires our good, beneficence which does us good. By loving us, God calls us to life, He infuses His grace in us, invites us to do good, urges us to be saints, draws us to Himself and gives us a share in His eternal happiness. Everything we are and have is the gift of His infinite love.

II. God "first loved us," exclaims St. John the Apostle (i Jn 4,10); and, in fact, He has loved us from all eternity. Even when we were not yet in existence, we were already in the mind of God, and seeing us, He loved us and willed to call us into existence in preference to innumerable other beings. "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore, have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee" (Je. 31, 3). This is how God reveals to us the story of our life, which is simply the story of His love for us. This story, once begun, never ends, because God’s love has no end; sin alone has the sad possibility of interrupting it, but even then God never ceases to love us with an infinite, eternal, immutable, most faithful love. He loves us when He consoles us, but He loves us too when He sends us trials and leaves us in distress; He loves us when He gives us joy in abundance, as well as when He afflicts us with sorrow. His consolations are love; so too are His chastisements and trials. In all the circumstances of our life, even the saddest and most painful, we are always encompassed by His love. God’s love can will nothing but good; even when He leads us by the harsh, rough road of suffering, He is infallibly willing our good. God "makes us die and makes us live.... He scourges us and He saves us" (cf. 1Sm. 2, 6 - Tb. 13, 2), always because of His love. Thus it is not rare that He strikes hardest those whom He loves most, for, as the Holy Spiritsays, ". . . acceptable men [are tried] in the furnace of humiliation" (Eus. 2, 5). St. Teresa of Jesus says : This suffering "is what the Father gave to Him whom He loved most of all [Jesus] .... These, then, are His gifts in this world. He gives them in proportion to the love He bears us. He gives more to those He loves most and less to those He loves least" (Way 32).

To believe in God’s love, to believe in it strongly even when He strikes us in what we hold most dear : such is the program of the soul who wishes to entrust itself blindly to infinite love!

Colloquy

"Teach me, O Lord, how to love You; wretched as I am, I will love You with my whole heart and soul, because You loved me first. I exist because You created me; You willed from all eternity to number me among Your creatures. Whence does this blessing come to me, O most benign Lord, Most High God, most merciful Father; for what merits of mine, what grace of mine, did it please Your Majesty to create me? I did not exist and You created me; I was nothing and from nothing You drew me and gave me being. Not the existence of a drop of water, of fire, a bird, a fish or any other irrational animal...but You created me a little lower than the angels, since, like them, I have been given reason by which I may know You, and knowing You, can love You. And I, O Lord, by Your grace, can become Your son, which is impossible to other creatures. Only Your grace, only Your goodness has done this, so that I may share in Your sweetness. Give me then, the grace to be grateful, O You who have created me out of nothing!" (St. Augustine).

"O my God and my infinite Wisdom, without measure and without bounds, high above all the understanding both of angels and of men! O Love, You who love me more than I can love myself or conceive of love! What amazes and bewilders me, considering what we are, is the love You had for us and still have. I am so astounded that I am beside myself.

"How could my will not incline to love You? O Lord, I have received from You so many signs of love and I want to repay You, at least in some small way. I am especially moved by the thought that You, because You truly love me, never leave me but go with me everywhere and give me being and life. I know that I can never have a better friend" (T.J. Exc, 17 - Con, 2 - Int C II, 1).