Lectio
“You want me to tell you why God is to be loved and how much. I answer, the reason for loving God is God himself, and the measure of love due to him is immeasurable love.”
— Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God
Meditatio
God does not ask more from us than what He is willing to give, or has already given, for He has given His entire Self to us, the full measure of His Being and His Love, and the sacrifice of His very Life on the Cross. What He asks of us is that we do the same. He asks that we give ourselves, our love and our lives, to and for others and to and for Him.
But He asks this not as repayment for what He has given, nor does He demand this of us or force us to do this — for He did this for us while we were still too selfish to notice, too blind to see Him, and too deaf to hear Him. Rather, He asks these things of us for us, that we may share in His Life with Him, that, by giving as He has given and loving as He has loved, we may be adopted into His family, grafted into His divinity through Christ, and joined to His eternal, unfolding goodness.
God does not ask us to love Him because He is selfish, but because He knows that the fruits of love are love. And He does not ask us to give our lives to Him and for others because He is lacking anything that we can provide — no amount of effort or sacrifice can earn from God what God freely gives — but because He knows that by giving our finite lives away, we gain eternal life in and through Him. God asks for our love because God is love, and by loving, we, too, become through grace what God is by nature — immeasurable and infinite love.
Oratio
The Bitter Seed
break through
the hardened ground
of my heart
dear Lord
may the seed of Your Word
once bitter
grow a fruitful yield
where others may find a home
in Your branches
shelter in Your shade
nourishment from Your fruit
for I am but the soil
You use
to grow Your Tree of Life
from which You scatter Your seeds
of hope
faith
love
in the world
now and forever
Contemplatio
Rest here a while longer, and remember that nothing is asked of you that has not first been given to you. You do not love Him to earn what is already yours. Offer Him your consent, and nothing more, and let Him take it from there.
Related Scripture
“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned.”
— Song of Songs 8:7 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Not My Will, But His: Facing the Cross I Would Avoid, which imagines what would unravel if Christ’s total gift of Himself on the Cross had ever once been withheld — the same self-giving this post asks us to share in.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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