Fear the Lord, and you will find Life.
1 John 4:7-8
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Whoever does not love does not know God. Powerful words. Frightful words. It is hard to love, for to love opens up our hearts to suffering, to pain, even to death. There is the joy and peace which makes it all worth it, but the Cross of Selfless Love we must all bear and share is just that, a torture device through which we find life and salvation instead of death. It is our hope and our burden. These words alone, however, could be explained away. I've heard it many times. 'We do love others, so therefore we love God.' 'I try to love, doesn't that count for something?' 'I'm a nice person, isn't that the same thing?' 'How can you love scum like rapists and murderers? That's not what God is talking about.' These are a twisting of the purity of the Gospel in order to have it better fit our image of God, our little god we worship all to often. Let us look at what St. Augustine says on this:
"All who do not love God are strangers and antichrists. They might come to the churches, but they cannot be numbered among the children of God. That fountain of life does not belong to them. A bad person can have baptism and prophecy. King Saul had prophecy: even while he persecuted the holy David, he was filled with the Spirit of Prophecy, and began to prophesy. [1 Sam. 19] A bad person can receive the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, for is said, “All who eat and drink unworthily, eat and drink judgment on themselves.” [1 Cor. 11:29] A bad person can have the name of Christ and be called a Christian. Such people are referred to when it says, “They polluted the name of their God.” [Ezek. 36:20] To have all these sacraments is, as I say, possible even for a bad person. But to have love and be a bad person is impossible. Love is the unique gift, the fountain that is yours alone. The Spirit of God exhorts you to drink from it, and in so doing to drink from himself."
These are even harsher words. How can this be? Why did St. Augustine intensify the language and broaden it's application, rather than softening it so as to be more palatable and gentler? Wasn't he afraid of offending someone and having them leave the Church? Apparently not. He is saying that if we don't love all, as God loved them then we don't belong to Him, that we aren't Christian. He is saying that if we aren't willing to die for the rapists and murderers of the world, as Christ did, then we have no part in Christ.
'They might come to churches, but they can't be numbered among the children of God.' 'A bad person can have baptism and prophecy.' St. Augustine, Church Father, Saint, and Doctor of the Catholic Church, is saying here that one can be a baptized, church-attending, choir-singing Christian, and yet not be part of the family of God. That if one does not love others, love as Christ loves, not just selfish love, one isn't a Christian. That's worth saying again. If we don't love, we are not Christian. This is why the books of Wisdom proclaim that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. These sayings scare the heck out of me. I don't love like Christ. I don't even love like a good Christian sometimes. Does this make me doubt my salvation? No. But it does inspire me, convict me even, to pray more, to love more deeply, to sacrifice more, and to seek God more in the Mass and Rosary and Work.
And this is the key, the message we should take out of St. Augustine's words, that the Spirit of God exhorts us, all of us, not just Christians, to drink from the fount of Love and thus drink from God Himself. For from the fear of the Lord springs forth the love of God, and thus unto our salvation and the world's.
Let us pray for God's love to fill us and overflow the cup of our hearts into the hearts and lives of all those around us.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
God, my Father,
may I love You in all things and above all things.
May I reach the joy which You have prepared for me in
Heaven.
Nothing is good that is against Your Will,
and all that is good comes from Your Hand.
Place in my heart a desire to please You
and fill my mind with thoughts of Your Love,
so that I may grow in Your Wisdom and enjoy Your Peace.
Amen.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Whoever does not love does not know God. Powerful words. Frightful words. It is hard to love, for to love opens up our hearts to suffering, to pain, even to death. There is the joy and peace which makes it all worth it, but the Cross of Selfless Love we must all bear and share is just that, a torture device through which we find life and salvation instead of death. It is our hope and our burden. These words alone, however, could be explained away. I've heard it many times. 'We do love others, so therefore we love God.' 'I try to love, doesn't that count for something?' 'I'm a nice person, isn't that the same thing?' 'How can you love scum like rapists and murderers? That's not what God is talking about.' These are a twisting of the purity of the Gospel in order to have it better fit our image of God, our little god we worship all to often. Let us look at what St. Augustine says on this:
"All who do not love God are strangers and antichrists. They might come to the churches, but they cannot be numbered among the children of God. That fountain of life does not belong to them. A bad person can have baptism and prophecy. King Saul had prophecy: even while he persecuted the holy David, he was filled with the Spirit of Prophecy, and began to prophesy. [1 Sam. 19] A bad person can receive the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, for is said, “All who eat and drink unworthily, eat and drink judgment on themselves.” [1 Cor. 11:29] A bad person can have the name of Christ and be called a Christian. Such people are referred to when it says, “They polluted the name of their God.” [Ezek. 36:20] To have all these sacraments is, as I say, possible even for a bad person. But to have love and be a bad person is impossible. Love is the unique gift, the fountain that is yours alone. The Spirit of God exhorts you to drink from it, and in so doing to drink from himself."
These are even harsher words. How can this be? Why did St. Augustine intensify the language and broaden it's application, rather than softening it so as to be more palatable and gentler? Wasn't he afraid of offending someone and having them leave the Church? Apparently not. He is saying that if we don't love all, as God loved them then we don't belong to Him, that we aren't Christian. He is saying that if we aren't willing to die for the rapists and murderers of the world, as Christ did, then we have no part in Christ.
'They might come to churches, but they can't be numbered among the children of God.' 'A bad person can have baptism and prophecy.' St. Augustine, Church Father, Saint, and Doctor of the Catholic Church, is saying here that one can be a baptized, church-attending, choir-singing Christian, and yet not be part of the family of God. That if one does not love others, love as Christ loves, not just selfish love, one isn't a Christian. That's worth saying again. If we don't love, we are not Christian. This is why the books of Wisdom proclaim that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. These sayings scare the heck out of me. I don't love like Christ. I don't even love like a good Christian sometimes. Does this make me doubt my salvation? No. But it does inspire me, convict me even, to pray more, to love more deeply, to sacrifice more, and to seek God more in the Mass and Rosary and Work.
And this is the key, the message we should take out of St. Augustine's words, that the Spirit of God exhorts us, all of us, not just Christians, to drink from the fount of Love and thus drink from God Himself. For from the fear of the Lord springs forth the love of God, and thus unto our salvation and the world's.
Let us pray for God's love to fill us and overflow the cup of our hearts into the hearts and lives of all those around us.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
God, my Father,
may I love You in all things and above all things.
May I reach the joy which You have prepared for me in
Heaven.
Nothing is good that is against Your Will,
and all that is good comes from Your Hand.
Place in my heart a desire to please You
and fill my mind with thoughts of Your Love,
so that I may grow in Your Wisdom and enjoy Your Peace.
Amen.
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