Lectio
“I require that you should love Me with the same love with which I love you. This indeed you cannot do, because I loved you without being loved. All the love which you have for Me you owe to Me, so that it is not of grace that you love Me, but because you ought to do so. While I love you of grace, and not because I owe you My love. Therefore to Me, in person, you cannot repay the love which I require of you, and I have placed you in the midst of your fellows, that you may do to them that which you cannot do to Me, that is to say, that you may love your neighbor of free grace, without expecting any return from him, and what you do to him, I count as done to Me…”
— Saint Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue
Meditatio
God needs nothing from us. There is not one thing we can give Him that He lacks, for He is Fullness itself, Being itself, and the Creator of all that we are and possess. He does not even need our love. Our love does not belong to us, nor did we create it; like everything else we have and hold, it first came from God. He needs our love no more than He needs our worship, our praise, or our charity. But He does desire these from us, not for His sake, but for our own. He wills for us what is best for us, which is love, both received and given away.
We cannot, therefore, love God as He loves us. He first loved us in our brokenness, our poverty, and our unworthiness of love, but in Himself He knows no such brokenness, poverty, or unworthiness. We cannot love Him out of His need, for He has none. We can love Him only with what He has given us, as a response to His giving. We love Him because, by His love, He enables us to, because He commands us to, and because we ought to, but not as He loves us.
We can, however, love others as He has loved us, and we are commanded to: before they deserve it, and even in their undeserving. We are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves, which is to love them as we have received love from the Source of all love, freely and without condition. And we are commanded to extend the same grace, mercy, and forgiveness to all our brothers and sisters, no matter how many times they have offended, insulted, or harmed us, just as God extends it to us even as we continue to deny, reject, betray, and crucify Him. It is not our grace, mercy, or forgiveness to give. These are His gifts, which we pass on to those in need just as we were and are in need.
And so the love we cannot return to God is not left unspent. He has placed us among our neighbors, who lack what He does not, so that what we received without earning may pass through us to them as freely as it was given to us. This is not a payment on a debt, nor a way of winning what has already been given. It is the same gift moving through open hands, and He receives it as His own, counting as done to Himself whatever is done to them. We cannot give to the One who lacks nothing, but we can give to those He loves, and in that giving we are caught up in the very movement of His love.
Oratio
His Hands
for the children of the Lord
may I give freely
this love was never mine
to hoard or to hold
love poured out
fills my wounded center
overflowing my heart
for neighbor, family, friend
He has given me life
He has given me purpose
in this world
may I become His hands
Contemplatio
Related Scripture
For Further Reading
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
Leave a Reply