Third Sunday of Lent; God’s Love of the Creature

Our Lord says: The soul who lives in My Will and makes it its own comes to take part in all the joys, in all the goods My Will contains. And if it does not experience these goods and joys on earth, having the deposit of everything in its will, it will find all of them in Heaven when it dies. What immense riches are taken to Heaven by the soul who lives in My Will. I can say that all Eternity runs to encircle it so as to enrich it and make it happy. (Volume 17, page 31)

Painting by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

The highest purpose of creatures in the world is to reveal to us the greatness of the Creator. The main purpose of the sun is not to give heat and light, or food that we might nourish the body. With all the wonderful things in nature that we so much enjoy, we must constantly remind ourselves that their noblest reason for existence is to serve as windows revealing to us the Great God. Every creature should be an impulse to adoration, which means to give loving recognition of the beauty and excellence of God.
From: Fr. John Hardon, SJ

Savaoph, God the Father, 1885-96 by Victor Vasnetsov.

Genisis 22:1-2,9,10-13,15-18 (B)

God put Abraham to the test. He called to him, “Abraham!” “Ready!” he replied. Then God said: “Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you.”

When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the Lord’s messenger called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!” “Yes, Lord,” he answered. “Do not lay your hand on the boy,” said the messenger. “Do not do the least thing to him. I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from Me your own beloved son.” As Abraham looked about, he spied a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. So he went and took the ram and offered it up as a holocaust in place of his son.

Again the Lord’s messenger called to Abraham from heaven and said: “I swear by Myself, declares the Lord, that because you acted as you did in not withholding from Me your beloved son, I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies, and in your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing — all this because you obeyed My command.”

The Sacrifice of Isaac:

We have a figure in the first reading of Abraham, our father in faith, the one who helps us understand what faith is really like. We remember the beginning of Abraham’s life. Abraham was called to leave all the things he found familiar. He was an older man. He was comfortable. He had lots of good things going for him. God said, “I want you to leave everything you’ve got here and go on a journey with Me. I’m going to take you to a place that is even better than where you are now.” Abraham responded by saying yes. This very unusual story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son does not reveal to us any of Abraham’s feelings or emotions about what he has been asked to do. Abraham is just there, saying, “Yes. I’m ready. I’ll do it.” The story shows a man who has developed an enormous trust and faith in God. Whatever God asks, Abraham is ready to do. But the story is really about God, and much less about Abraham. It reveals the essence of how God really works. God needs something from us: Absolute, total trust - and a listening heart. A listening heart means you not only hear what God says, but you are willing to do whatever He asks. My conviction is that the only thing that brought Abraham to the place of total trust in God is that he began to see God as the One Who is for him. God is on Abraham’s side. Saint Paul describes God’s nature in the second reading, saying, “God is for us. If God is for us; who can be against us?”

If God was willing to offer His only Son, if God the Son was willing to offer His life for us, if They are willing to give up everything for us, then why wouldn’t we trust that anything They ask for would be for our good? That’s the key: Believing that the process God calls us to, with all of its strange turns and twists, with all of its pain and suffering and joy, is put together in a way that it all works for us. If God is for us, what could possibly be working against us that is big enough to thwart the plan? The story of Abraham is about a disposition God develops to get us to a place where we are radically open - even to the point of giving away the things in our lives that give us the most pleasure. In a way, Abraham was asked to give up his future. Isaac, his son, was his only heir. It’s like God sometimes seems to be asking us to let go of what we want most right now. Maybe it feels like God is messing around with our future and that we aren’t going to have one if we don’t get what we think we need. To get to the disposition of being totally filled with trust is what Jesus was trying to accomplish in Peter, James, and John. It’s what this season of Lent is trying to accomplish in every one of us. What I would like to share with you is that there is no way to be in that disposition of trust unless you have a sense, unless you have a glimpse of Who this God really is. There are many things we can put our trust in. There are many goals we can work toward in terms of finding security. And yet the older we get and the longer we live, it strikes me that we always find those things wanting. When we look at God and hear His voice, when we listen attentively to Who He is, we can sense a God Who is in charge of everything and Who has an incredible desire to take care of us. If we can believe that, if we can see that in a moment of insight, we can make radical choices such as the one Abraham was ready to make. We are willing to let go of something we need or that we think is the source of our happiness in order for something better to come into our lives. We then become blessed by whatever God is giving us.
From: www.copiosa.org

Reflections on DOING THE ROUNDS IN THE DIVINE WILL

May 2, 1938 Volume 36
How the Divine Will constantly asks for the human will, to be able to say: you did not deny me anything, so neither can I deny you anything. How It forms its little sea of love in the Divine ocean. The Creation. The sweet enchantment of the manifestation of God’s love toward creatures.
My flight continues in the Divine Will. Oh! how surprising it is to see It asking continuously for the human will in order to make it into one of Its marvels of love.
How touching to see that a Divine Fiat asks the creatures for their human wills.
My sweet Jesus, in seeing me so moved, came back for His short little visit, and all goodness said: “My daughter, it is always our love that, with irresistible strength, pushes us toward the creature to say, in the attitude of asking as if we needed her: ‘You loved me, and I love you. You gave yourself to me and I give to you.’ Now, you must know the extent of our love: every time we ask for her will and she gives it, she also gives us lives for as many times as she gives us her will. So, to give her the opportunity and credit, we remain always in the act of asking her to give us her life - not once but as many times as we ask her. Do you think it’s nothing that the creature can then say, ‘I gave you many lives; not once but thousands of times - for as many times as you asked me?’
And we not only love her with twofold love for each time she gave us her will - deserving it again every time - but we feel more glorified and loved, for as many lives as she gave us. This is nothing other than the exuberance of our love - the keenness, the stratagems, excesses and follies of our operating love - which just can’t stop finding ever new ways to deal with the creature; to be able to say: ‘this many times we asked for her will and she never denied it. We can we refuse her nothing.’ Isn’t this an insuperable sign of love, which only a God can make?
Further, our love never stops. We always try to keep the creature within us. As she loves our Will, we let her own little sea of love be formed in the immensity of our ocean of love, in order to feel her love inside of ours - loving together with ours. It will be smaller, we know, since created love can never reach the creative one, but our content is unspeakable in seeing her loving inside our love, and with our love. A detached love, separated from us, could never please or hurt us; it would just lose the best of love itself. So, every time she loves us in our Fiat, her tiny sea of love keeps growing in our Divine ocean, and we feel more glorified and loved in seeing the growth of our creature’s love.”

After this, I was doing my rounds in the Creation to trace all the acts done by the Divine Will. And my sweet Jesus added: “My blessed daughter, Creation is the sweetest enchantment of our love manifested toward creatures: there is the blue of the Sky with its stars, the bright Sun, air, wind and sea - always fixed, never moving, telling man of our incessant love. Then, on the ground, there are flowers, plants, trees, tiny grass - and each of them has the voice, motion and love life of their Creator - even the most tiny blade of grass - to tell everybody the love story of the One Who created them. It seems that things created in the earth die, but it’s not true; rather, they rise again, to be even more beautiful. This is nothing other than the new resurrection of God’s love toward creatures.
While they seem to be dying - in order to give a sweet surprise of love - they rise again more beautiful; and God puts the new enchantment of blooming and fruits, under everybody’s eyes, to be loved. One can say that each flower and plant carries the kiss, the ‘I love you’ of its Creator to the one who is looking at it and takes it. This is why our supreme love expects that, in everything, the creature recognizes us and sends to us her ‘I love you’ - but we wait in vain.

In all created things our Supreme Being manifests our power, Wisdom, goodness and the order of our love; and we give it to man so that he may love us with powerful, wise, all good love - being himself the image of our Divine love. All this can be received by the one who lives in our Will, since we can say that she lives from our own Life
On the other hand, outside of our Will, love is weak, wisdom is insipid, goodness turns into defects, order into disorder. Poor creature, without our Will, how we pity her! Furthermore, loving our creature incessantly, we want to find in her unceasing love, but when she doesn’t love us she forms big gaps of love in her soul, and our love, unable to find itself in those gaps, does not know where to lean. It remains suspended, goes wandering, runs - flies, not finding who would receive It. It shouts, in agonizing pains: ‘I am not loved, I cannot find one who loves me.’.”
Then He added, in a more tender tone: “Dearest daughter, if you knew the extent of my love for the soul who lives in my Will, you would love me so much that your heart would burst from joy, and your love and my love would consume you, devour you for pure love of me. Now, you must know that my Divine Will gathers all that the creature living in It does. Nothing done in my Fiat can leave, but remains in our fields of light, and my Will delights in picking up motion, breathing, steps, words and thoughts - all that she has done in our Volition - to incorporate it in our own life. If I didn’t do so, Our Life would miss that breath, motion - everything the creature did in our Will; they are really parts of our Life, so we feel the need for them to continue their breathing, moving and walking inside ours. Therefore, we call the creature to live in our Will, breath, heartbeat, motion and love. We are neither able nor do we want to detach ourselves from even a breath of one who lives in our Will. It would be as if our life were torn away. As she moves, breathes and so forth, my Will puts on a festive air and keeps gathering all that the creature does - loving her, as if It would contribute to form breath and motion in the creature, and, at the same time, as if the creature would give breath and motion to God.
These are the excesses and the inventions of our love which is only happy when It can say: ‘what I do she does, as we move, sigh and love together.’ Then we feel the happiness, glory and appreciation for our creative work, which returns all love into our Divine womb, as it came out, in a fire of love from our paternal bosom.”
My Beloved Father, Son and Holy Spirit…I love you with Thy Divine Will…in my nothingness…united with your will…I become The All!