Vol. II December 1999

"I Know Your Father"

You, the reader of this meditation, are probably unknown to its author. We have probably never met, so it might seem a little strange to think that I actually know your Father, or better still, that I am His friend. Likewise, even though you do not know me, you know my Father. On many an occasion you have spoken to Him. Now as you conversed with Him you were probably not thinking of me, but you were praying for me. And as I speak to Him, even though I do not advert to you directly, you are included. We pray to Our Father. We pray that He "Give us this day our daily bread", that He "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us", and that He "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil". We share one Father. We are therefore brothers and sisters. We are loved by that Father. Let us now reflect a little on this love and on our response.

God loved us first

Let us imagine that you bought a jacket for your brother as a Christmas present. A couple of days after Christmas you walk into the kitchen and there he is using the jacket to wash the floor. How would you take this? Undoubtedly you would feel that your love has been rejected. Even if your brother guarantees that the cleaners will do a perfect job in restoring the jacket you will not be consoled. It would hurt less to see the jacket completely destroyed by accident, than to see it damaged by such an ungrateful gesture.

To reject the authentic love of another human person is sinful. To reject God's love is even more sinful. And when we ponder a little, we realize that we owe everything to God's love. Why are we alive? We are alive as God in His love created us. He had absolutely no need for us. He created us out of love. But how do we use this gift of life? Do we use it as our friend used the jacket he received as a Christmas present completely against the intentions of the giver? Or do we use it in a way that really pleases the Giver?

How does the Giver want us to use the gift of life? The answer is simple: Throughout our life we must remain open to His Love. He wants to inundate us with His Love. He wants to pour His Love into our hearts so that we learn to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (cf. Lk 10,27). Do we really want to be fulfilled? Do we desire to be realized? In what does our realization consist? It consists in using all your abilities to the full, in loving without reserve or condition, in loving God and in loving your neighbor for God's sake. But to reach such a peak of love one must allow oneself to be loved by God. Only God Himself can fill us with such love.

For this reason our most basic attitude must be openness. We must "allow" God to love us. Most of us are so desirous of being loved by other human persons that we forget God's Love. If we sat down and thought seriously about our innermost attitudes, we would probably discover that we attach much more importance to being loved by our family and friends than to being loved by God. We do everything to please these persons and very little to please God. It seems that our fundamental option is to remain open to human love. Maybe we should not call this a fundamental option, but a fundamental sin. If the very fountain of our existence is the Love of God, how is it possible that we attach so little importance to being open to His Love in our daily lives?

His is Our Father. He loves us. He loves us more than anyone of us can possibly imagine. At this moment, as we read these lines, we are being loved by God the Father. Let us stop and think. Let us open ourselves to this love. Let us allow it to penetrate to the very bottom of our souls. Let us allow God to transform us. Speaking of God's Love St. Therese of Lisieux wrote:

Everywhere that Love is misunderstood and thrust on one side; the hearts upon which You are ready to lavish it turn away towards creatures instead, as if happiness could be found in such miserable attachments as that; they won't throw themselves into Your arms and accept the gift of Your infinite Love.¹

If we would only recognize that God is Our Father, we would be open to being loved by Him. And until we desire to be burnt up in the fire of God's Love² we have not yet accepted that He is Our Father. If we do not allow God to love us, can we really claim to be His loving sons and daughters?

The Father loves your neighbor

What is envy? Envy is a certain kind of sadness, the sadness we sometimes experience on seeing the goods possessed by another. Such a reaction sounds strange. How is it possible to be sad because another has just bought a new car, has got top marks in his exams, or has got promotion at work? The good for tune of others saddens us, when we perceive that it somehow diminishes our own excellence or renown.

But is such an attitude Christian? This question does not demand a answer. It is very obvious that the well being of others should provoke joy in our hearts, just as their ill fortune ought to provoke sadness and never rejoicing. If it is true that the Father "makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust"(Mt 5,45), should we not recognize the goods of others as the gifts of God? If He is really Our Father, and if we really love Him, will we not be happy because of the well being of our brothers and sisters. They are His sons and daughters. For this reason we ought to rejoice in the gifts He lavishes on them. Yes, this is the ideal. But in daily life we have to confess that envy has still some hold on our hearts.

Our question is: how can this envy die? We must let it die of hunger. On noticing the good fortune of another we must immediately rejoice; we must think to ourselves, 'God Our Good Father, out of His Infinite Love, has given this gift to my neighbor."For this, Father, I thank You"'. By occupying ourselves with such healthy dispositions, we do not give room to what is base and offensive to Our Father.

Meditation on the love that the Father has for all men will help us to love Him and them. If we could only dedicate a couple of minutes to pondering on how much He loves our neighbor, our love for our neighbor would surely grow. What we admire, we are inclined to imitate. If we could but admire the Love of Our Father, we would grow in our love for Him, in personal happiness, and in love for our neighbor.

We must not only remain open to being loved by God Our Father, but we must also rejoice in seeing that He is showering His blessings on our family and friends.

Let us imitate Our Lady who was always totally open to God's loving plans: "Be it done unto me according to thy word"(Lk 1,38). The Blessed Mother, more than any other Saint, was disposed to receiving the Love of the Father. But she was also capable of sharing in the joy and needs of others. In a spirit of true charity she "arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth"(Lk 1,39-40). Between these two holy women there was no room for envy. Mary brought joy to Elizabeth and thereby showed that she rejoiced in the gift that God had given to her cousin. This joy brought by Our Lady was so intense that St. Elizabeth confessed: "the babe in my womb leaped for joy" (Lk 1,44).

Our Lady's joy in the Gift of God is expressed in the Magnificat:

My soul glorifies the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. (Lk 1,46-55)

Elizabeth, who had received the extraordinary grace of conceiving John in her old age, greeted Our Lady, who had received an incomparably greater grace, with joy and admiration. Here we see no sign of envy. The words of Elizabeth, words of humility, express her happiness in Mary's becoming the Mother of God:

Blessed are you among women,

and blessed is the fruit of your womb!

And why is this granted me,

that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

(Lk 1,42-43)

Let us, like St. Elizabeth and Our Lady, rejoice with all those who "have found favor with God" (Lk 1,30).

¹ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX, Autobiography of a Saint, Translated by Ronald Knox, Collins Fount Paperbacks (Glasgow 1958), p.176

²Cf. ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX, Autobiography of a Saint, p.176

³Opening Prayer of the Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent.