Lectio
“True and perfect obedience is a virtue above all virtues, and there is no work, however great it may be, that can take place or be performed without this virtue, and even the very least of works, whether it be saying or listening to Mass, praying, meditating, or whatever you can think of, is more usefully done when it is performed in true obedience.”
— Meister Eckhart, The Talks of Instruction
Meditatio
Jesus commands us to love. He commands us to love God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind. And, in our loving of God, or as an expression of our love for God, He commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves, which implies that we also love ourselves.
This command to love does not replace the law. Nor does it override the words of the prophets. Rather, this single command is the essence and fulfillment of all that came before He came to us, before the Incarnation, when the Word was unembodied — with God as the very Word of God.
This command is Jesus’s way of telling us how to have a right relationship with God, with neighbor, and with ourselves — how to be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect, for God, Himself, is Love itself. And so to love is to do the will of the Father; it is to become the will of the Father.
Jesus’s command to love God, neighbor, and self is not a simplification, but a distillation of the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai. The first three commandments form the vertical axis of love — how we are to rightly love God above all things. The last six form the horizontal axis — how we are to rightly love our neighbors as ourselves, and so love ourselves, by living in the grace and dignity God intended for us from the beginning. Between them stands the fourth commandment, honoring father and mother, the binding point where the vertical meets the horizontal — where love of God and love of neighbor cross into one another, as they always must.
And so to be obedient to the Lord is to love. It is to love above all other desires, feelings, and agendas. It is to love in spite of our circumstances, regardless of how we are treated, and no matter how difficult our life may be. To love in a broken world with broken relationships and through a fractured, wounded self is the cross we must bear as the beloved sons and daughters of Love itself. Whatever we do, if we do it in, from, and for love, is made more fruitful for it, and anything we do absent of love is destined to die on the vine.
Oratio
Posture Of Love
the cross of love
binds me to itself
I hang here
in my nakedness
unable to run
or turn away
from Your piercing gaze
by grace I remain
arms outstretched
to give
to receive
in this posture
of submission
and ascension
Contemplatio
You do not have to turn from His gaze. Let yourself remain here a while — arms open, nothing hidden, nothing held back. This is not defeat; it is the shape love takes when it stops resisting. Rest in the stillness, consenting to His presence, and let Him move in you however He wills.
Related Scripture
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
— 1 John 4:7–8
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Not To Change God’s Mind: On The Incarnation As Revelation, which explores the same Word who “was with God as the very Word of God” before ever taking on flesh.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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