WATCHWORD:
3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. 13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.1 Corinthians 13:3-7, 11-13
Meditation:
Cradled in God’s Love
Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down,
Fix in us thy humble dwelling,
All thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesu, thou art all compassion,
Pure, unbounded love thou art;
Visit us with thy salvation,
Enter every trembling heart.
We are cradled in God’s love. Have you ever thought about that? God’s love surrounds us in so many ways, twenty-four hours each day, every week, every month, all the time. We talk about how our Lord is around us, within us. We pray to Him most every night. But, are we conscious of His presence?
CS Lewis, in his essay “The Four Loves”, makes this statement about understanding the depth and the breath of God’s love:” We must not begin with mysticism, with the creature’s love for God or with the wonderful foretaste of God’s gifts in our earthly life. We begin at the real beginning, with love as Divine Energy. This primal love is Gift-love.”
I don’t know fully what Lewis means by “Divine Energy”, do you? I found a referral to Genesis Chapter 1, which has a vivid description of Divine Energy, or Divine Love. We might call it the Spirit of God, because that is what it is. God as Creator. How about God’s love toward all and everything He has created, from the beginning to the moment you read this?
It was that love that created this world, this universe, everything. With our limitations of language, of experience, of what might be called divine imagination, we humans have defined love in a most limited way. If we were to know God’s full definition of love we might be amazed, we might be reassured or confused, we might be all of those things and more. We might conclude that our earthly definition of love is amazingly inadequate and much too small to encompass the love that God has for us.
Does that reassure us or cause us to wonder? How does God see us?
Our worlds are filled with love songs. Songs about falling in love, about forbidden love, about broken hearted love, any kind of love song. If you cross over to the country western side, you’ll find some absolutely ridiculous love songs. Songs that will bring tears to your eyes about coming home from work and calling her name and no one answers. Songs about remembrance the way we were but aren’t anymore.
But regardless of what genre you may want to listen to, including classical music, at the heart of it all, maybe at the time that composer was inspired, or the poet rhymed through her tears, the force behind that creativity was Divine love.
Okay, what about Divine Love? The most fundamental feature is that it tends to extend beyond itself. In other words, it has a strong urge to toward inclusion, which in turn leads to an equally strong urge to create. That’s why we say that without Divine love nothing would be created.
I think we’ve all experienced that Divine Energy in our lifetimes. For us, down here on planet Earth, we might have other names for it such as “Higher Power”, or “My Muse”, but that power translates into creating something beautiful. Perhaps in art, Music, planting a garden, writing, raising a child, loving another, and on down a long, blessed list of activities and relationships, all beginning with Divine Energy — God’s love.
By the same token, the key to our spiritual development is having and experiencing the Divine Energy, which keeps us focused on God’s will for our lives. If you want to know if you are making any progress on your spiritual path, ask yourself whether you’re experiencing Divine love.
Many of these Meditations I think flowed from inspiration. Maybe, I should start calling those times, evidence of Divine Energy.
For me, the most striking example of Divine Energy occurred in the writing of A Life for Barabbas. That book, to be released this fall, started as a short essay for Zion’s Lenten newsletter, 2017. I found I could not leave that essay alone, but kept adding to it, especially after I spent time with my devotionals and prayers during the early morning hours.
Let me be the first to say that Divine Energy needs no object to express itself, not a book, not a piece of art, not a child raised. Divine Energy is what drives everything in our Christian life. It plays no favorites, touching Saints and sinners alike. The difference is that Saints have “prepared and made straight the way” for receiving God’s love.
Finish then thy new creation,
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation,
Perfectly restored in thee;
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love and Praise.
Whether you aware of it or not, Divine Love is all that you’ll ever want or you’ll ever need. You might think that you are looking for human love, prosperity, abundance, social status, money, or something else, but actually behind all these, there is your Higher self, calling you from the distance. When we realize that God is greater than all His gifts, that is where we find His love. Amen.
Bulletin Board:
An Irish Story — Miss O’Leary is a lovely little old Irish spinster from Cork. The old priest at her Catholic church had retired, and was replaced by a much younger, handsome priest. After Mass one Sunday, she went up to the new priest and said, “I have to tell you Father, your sermons are a wonder to behold. Sure, we didn’t know what sin was till you came to the parish!”
Closing Prayers:
Thank you for your great love for us. You sent your only Son to live with us and show us how to love. He gave His life for us and resurrected on that third day so that we could also be with you in eternity!
Lord, to feel just an inch of the radiance of your love and the glow from your excellence will be more than we can imagine. Knowing your love for us is humbling too.
We are imperfect humans moving around on this Earth day to day attempting to live lives that are worthy of the calling you have on us. We need your guidance and direction.
Thank you Father that no matter where our hearts are you are always reaching out to love us unconditionally! You are the ultimate example of love and we are so grateful for that! In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
