Advent: Love

Dec 16

St. Anselm described God as “that than which nothing greater can be thought.” That is, no matter what we may come up with, it will always be woefully inadequate. In one sense, I think this is awesome. Yet, we still attempt to identify that which we long for and the One who only longs for us. Many argue that more than anything else, God is mercy.

The scriptures are replete with examples of God’s mercy in the story of salvation history, which still plays out in the incredible compassion God has for us numerous times a day. Yet is God’s mercy the clearest example of God’s love? In 1 John 4, we read, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way, the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.” At this point, I want to write, Q.E.D., the old Latin phrase meaning “that was demonstrated” which you closed a successful logical proof to some geometric theorem. (Full disclosure, this was before my time.) Or I may respond to 1 John 4, “point, set, match.” What more can be said of God and of love?

“God is love” is itself an equation, suggesting they are interchangeable. God had no need to create the world. It was a pure gift with the human person being the crown of his generative love. This love continues with the gift of woman, a suitable partner that God places next to the man to suggest equality. Both are created in God’s image and likeness, as are we their spiritual progeny. To them and to us, God gives the gift of co-creating, not just our offspring, but also new ideas to care for this world and one another, as opposed to dominating or controlling. The latter introduced sin into the world, which God addressed with the greatest self-donation, His ONLY Son, sent to show us how to live and how to love.

Jesus was about love whether in teaching, healing, feeding, accompanying, resting, and embracing. This love was especially on display with the last, the least, the lost, and the lonely. It was the central message of his ministry, for God is love. In his Surprised by Hope, Timothy Radcliffe, in speaking of Jesus’ post-resurrection encounter with Peter, notes how there was no judgment about the past denials, no promise of future allegiance, just a simple present moment living question, “Peter, do you love me?” This “rehabilitation” was complete. Indeed, as the commercials tell us, “He gets us.” Jesus knows we are weak, often turn on ourselves, fail, though we have the best intentions, just can’t seem to get our act together fully. To us, he asks if we love him as well...here and now, present moment living. Do we love the One who never stops loving us?

This requires us to let go of the shame and guilt of the past, the realization of our inability to be perfect, and to embrace the love God offers through God’s understanding, compassion, forgiveness, and love. This continual reception of God’s love tricks us into believing we are figuring it out until we receive it again and again, realizing that we have not scratched the surface of what God’s infinite love means, “that than which nothing greater can be thought.”

I am convinced that St. Francis de Sales was divinely inspired to espouse in a special way, the virtues of humility and gentleness. In Salesian spirituality, humility is the bare-naked, no-holds-barred truth of who we are before God (lovable yet often broken, gifted yet flawed, incredibly wonderful but at times a knucklehead, faithful but clumsy). Here, we lay it all on the line, full disclosure, so we know what God knows and let God’s compassionate love and mercy flow over us as Mary’s costly alabaster ran down on Jesus in His need and vulnerability.

The successive expressions of God’s love in response to our humility (a vertical love connection) issue forth in our gentleness toward neighbor (the horizontal expression of love). Indeed, love is “willing the good of the other as other.” Falling deeper in love with God, who always initiates things, breaks down the demonization, hate, judgment, and finger-pointing till only love remains. Then, we have found the God who is love. This is the reason for the season, the gift that keeps giving.