Friday, November 20, 2015

One Christ Loving Himself


An event that my husband and I have squarely locked in our sights is our retirement. Jim turned 60 this year so the light of this new stage of our lives continues to shine a bit brighter with each passing year. We certainly hope that it will become a reality in the next five, six or maybe seven years tops. We are mindful about saving and making investments for a future free from financial worry. Additionally, it seems we are always searching for new places to settle in our golden years away from the rat race of the Washington DC suburbs. We often dream of a quaint cottage near the ocean or in the mountains or, my husband's preference, situated on a glistening lake, yet definitely not too far from our children and grandchildren. We plan, we save, we dream. But does all the effort we put into ensuring that our material needs will be met in our old age, all of the careful planning, the scrimping and the saving and even the dreaming of lakeside living distract from focusing on our ultimate goal?

Our retirement shouldn't be an end in and of itself, our final reward for a life of hardwork and dedication. Certainly it will be a well-deserved and very much appreciated stage in our lives. And it is prudent to do what we can now to take care of our future material needs. However, if we're not careful our focus can become so narrow that we lose sight of our heavenly home and perhaps miss opportunities for growth here and now. We end up not being able to see the forest for the trees. For example, sometimes I catch myself growing super excited, like a kid who can't wait for Christmas, as I peruse the online real estate listings in rural areas and as I blissfully daydream about what life will be like down the road. 

But am I so caught up in planning my worldly future that I fail to appreciate what God is doing in my life right now and how he's preparing me for a future with Him? Sometimes I am so easily distracted from what's most important.

I'm sure the longing in our hearts to escape the bustle and busyness of our work-a-day lives reflects our true desire for our heavenly home. And no matter how much we plan for our earthly future, we won't be truly satisfied until we rest there eternally. Which is why it is important, here and now and every day, to take notice of God's presence in our lives and to consider what is necessary to ensure we are welcomed into Paradise. My efforts to grow in holiness should never cease, now or tomorrow or every day for the rest of my life.

As we approach the end of the liturgical year, our readings at Mass are a stark reminder of the inevitability of the end times, if not for all mankind, then most certainly of our own. We don't know the day or the hour, but must remain viligant and ever ready. "But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mark 13:32)

Who knows if I'll even make it to retirement? I may not. I hope Jim and I are given that time together, but there's no guarantee for either one of us. Assuming that we do make it, I anticipate many challenges ahead, but I hope and pray that they will simply be opportunities for sanctification and will provide what is truly necessary for my final journey. And I pray that I willingly respond to the grace to do whatever I do, today, tomorrow, next week, or ten years from now always with great love. Throughout the centuries great saints have taught us that love is the key to holiness - our union with God. Saint Therese of Lisieux, Blessed Mother Teresa, and Venerable Solanus Casey just to name a few. They tell us to do everything, even the most miniscule thing, with great love.

But it's not the sort of syrupy, overly sentimental love that is often portrayed on the Hallmark Channel. It is an intense, life altering, supernatural love. It is the love that we can only receive from God.

When a pharisee in Matthew's gospel asks Jesus which commandment is the greatest. Jesus says to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And then he says something very striking, The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.  Without love nothing else matters. Nothing even makes sense. 

Saint Paul explains it to the Corinthians:
If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
How do we acquire this love; how do we, weak as we are, love God?

Dom Eugene Boylan, OCSO writes in his magnificent book, This Tremendous Lover

For the love by which we love God is given to us by God himself. It is in fact a special effect produced in us by the presence in our souls of the Holy Spirit, who is the subsistent love of God for Himself. As a great disciple of St. Bernard, William of St. Thierry, puts it: "Thou lovest Thyself in us, when Thou sendest the Spirit of Thy Son into our hearts. ... Thou dost make us love Thee; or rather it is thus that Thou lovest Thyself in us. ... We love Thee beause we receive from Thee Thy Spirit. ... Who transforms us ... in perfect conformity with Thy love. This produces so great an attachment and union that ... our Lord, Thy Son, called it unity, saying: That they may be one in us ... as I and Thou are one. We love Thee, or Thou lovest Thyself in us; we by our affections, Thou by Thy power. And Thou dost make us one by Thy unity, that is by Thy Holy Spirit, whom Thou hast given to us." (Deo contemplando Deo) 
Boylan continues, as one modern commentator summing up the doctrine of William of St. Thierry, puts it: "We love God through God, and all supernatural love constitutes, so to speak, on God loving Himself in Jesus Christ." ... We in our self-sufficiency try to love Him with our own strength and with our own heart. He wants a love like to His own; and He offers us Himself so that we may use His love to love Him. His prayer to the Father is: That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (John 17:26) Thus the Two Persons of the Blessed Trinity are in our souls to help us to live and to love."

The season of Advent is nearly a week away. It is the time we prepare our hearts and souls for the coming of Christ. John the Baptist exhorts, He must increase; I must decrease. No matter our state in life, we must stop being so full of ourselves and all that separates us from our Lord. We need to empty ourselves and allow Him in, to allow His heart to replace our own, so that He can love Himself in us! And that is how we are capable of loving our neighbor.

Boylan writes, 
We hurry from one thing to another; we exhaust our ingenuity in divising new amusements to capture our jaded fancy; we plunge deeper and deeper into the mire of self-satisfaction; and we're further away from peace than ever. For our hearts are made for God, and they cannot rest till they rest in Him. ... He pursues us and He uses His providence to draw us away from all else, and to draw all else away from us, so that we may be driven to listen to His voice, and cast ourselves upon His heart.

And finally, I hope to keep these wise words of Boylan's close by to re-read and contemplate every now and again, as a reminder of where I ultimately need to set my sights:

If we would but be convinced that there is but one answer to the riddle of life and if we would accept our vocation to divine union as the sole end of our life, then immediately everything falls into perfect harmony; the whole scheme of things down to every detail of our lives acquires a new meaning, for all things have been accepted by the will of our Redeemer and made to co-operate in leading us to union with God. All things work together for good to those who love God, for it is His purpose and plan to re-establish all things in Christ. ... We must realize that God is our tremendous lover, that He is our all and that He has done all our works for us. ...We have to accept the self, and the surroundings, and the story, that God's providence arranges for us. In humility we must accept our self - just as we are; in charity, we must accept and love our neighbor just as he is; in abandonment, we must accept God's will just as things happen to us and just as He would have us act. Faithful compliance with His will and humble acceptance of His arrangements will bring us to full union with Christ. For the rest, let us gladly glory in our infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in us. In our weakness and in our love we shall thus become one with Him, and there shall be one Christ loving Himself.














1 comment:

  1. Another beautifully written post. Every couple should read it. I don't know if Dad ever planned to retire, but I remember one time while at the beach I saw an older couple walking along the waterfront holding hands and I thought how nice it will be when we can do that. God called Dad to his everlasting home much too soon, but everything is in God's hands. Little we know except to love God above all else.

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