By: Msgr. Charles Pope
More often than not, the average Catholic thinks of the Commandments and the Christian moral life, as well as the spiritual life as a task, or list of tasks they must accomplish out of their own flesh power, or else they will face some negative consequence. Hence the moral life is seen by many as a drudgery and is carried out with little enthusiasm. Hence many will hear that they must be less angry, more generous, less vengeful, more chaste etc., and they think rules, and rules though necessary are uninspiring.
Few see the moral life as a magnificent vision of transformation in Christ and a portrait of a soul set on fire with love. More see the moral and spiritual life as a painful prescription more than a delightful description of what happens to the human person when Jesus Christ begins to live his life in them. Most see the most life as something thy must achieve rather than receive.
Of course “achievement” is neither grace, nor the gospel. And if salvation, transformation and perfection can be achieved, then who needs Christ?
Therefore, we must come to see the moral vision of the New Testament, with all its lofty and seemingly impossible demands as a description of what God will do for us, rather than a prescription of what we must do by our unaided flesh.
Consider the first and greatest commandment that we should Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deut 6:5). Frankly most people, (in their flesh), have a hard time loving God. They find prayer tedious, and are lukewarm at best in their affection for God. Mass, Scripture, prayer and so forth seem boring endeavors to them and, though they find time for everything else, God often gets no time, or, at best, the leftovers of the day.
On hearing that they should love God, some will attempt to rouse themselves to “do better.” But the results are usually pretty discouraging, since they are usually attempts made out of the flesh which is inimical to God (cf Rom 8:7).
How then shall we get there? How does the human person attain to the normal Christian life which is to have a tender and intense love for God?
Consider the following passage from one of the lesser known Eastern Fathers of the Church:
Anyone who loves God in the depths of his heart has already been loved by God. In fact, the measure of a man’s love for God depends upon how deeply aware he is of God’s love for him. When this awareness is keen it makes whoever possesses it long to be enlightened by the divine light, and this longing is so intense that it seems to penetrate his very bones. He loses all consciousness of himself and is entirely transformed by the love of God.
Such a man lives in this life and at the same time does not live in it, for although he still inhabits his body, he is constantly leaving it in spirit because of the love that draws him toward God. Once the love of God has released him from self-love, the flame of divine love never ceases to burn in his heart and he remains united to God by an irresistible longing.
From the treatise On Spiritual Perfection by St. Diadochus of Photice, bishop
(Cap. 12. 13. 14: PG 65, 1171-1172)
What St. Diadochus is describing here is the normal Christian life. Here the word “normal” is not used in the numerary sense that “most people attain this,” but in the sense of “what is to be expected.” How could it be that if Jesus Christ is living his life in us we would have anything less than a tender and longing love for God?
And note how Diadochus says this love begins in our experience of God’s love for us. Experience here means more than intellectual assent to the statement that “God loves me.” Rather, experience means just that, experience, to actually know, in a first hand way, and to witness the power and tenderness of God’s love for me. As it finally begins to dawn on us that the Son of God died for us, our hearts are steeped in God’s love. Yes, it finally begins to dawn on us that the Father’s providential love for us is unlimited and magnificent. Being filled with that love we now gain a joy, an affection, a serenity and an tender love of growing intensity for God.
More and more we delight to think of him, speak with him and simply sit quietly in contemplative union with God. And thus we journey, by stages to the normal Christian life, which is to have a deep affection and tender love and abiding desire for God.
Go to the Cross of Christ and ask this gift. Ask for the desire for this gift, if you don’t even have that. But ask, seek, knock. Our love for God is not, and cannot be our work. It is God’s work in us. And all He needs to get started is your “yes.” The door to your heart must be opened from the inside. Let God enter, and let him go to work filling you with his love.
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
I think that what Monsignor Pope is describing in this splendid piece is an experience and an idea that is gradually dawning on many individuals all over the world. Many of them will read this article and feel strengthened in that experience and in that idea. And each of them will be pleasantly surprised to learn that what is happening to them is occurring in the lives of others as well.
LikeLike
Absolutely Robert. Mgr.Pope is a favourite of mine, as much for his insight into the human condition as his encouraging homilies. Oh that we had more holy priests so discerning.
LikeLike
.
“Consider the first and greatest commandment that we should Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deut 6:5).”
That would not seem to allow even a miniscule morsel of love for wife, children, family, friends and the pesky man next door – let alone for our dogs, cats and canaries. Would it?
Fine if you live alone in a cave in the “Holy” Land, though. Or so Toad assumes.
“You are not supposed to take it literally, Toad!” someone will probably say. Oh, well.
LikeLike
Oh Toad; without getting too polemical, there are different types of love. The love of husband/wife for the other, the love of Mother for her child etc.
The all encompassing love of God is altogether a different love, unconditionally given to us, but taking most of us a life-time to comprehend Like salvation, it is a work in progress.
LikeLike
.
“Go to the Cross of Christ and ask this gift. Ask for the desire for this gift, if you don’t even have that. But ask, seek, knock. Our love for God is not, and cannot be our work. It is God’s work in us. And all He needs to get started is your “yes.” The door to your heart must be opened from the inside. Let God enter, and let him go to work filling you with his love.”
What on earth is the point in knocking, if the door opens from the inside?
(You must forgive Toad, Gertrude. He used to get paid for raising points like this with “writers”, and it has become a habit. Boring old fart that Toad is.)
LikeLike
He used to get paid for raising points like this with “writers”, and it has become a habit.
So you were paid for that sort of thing, but nobody thought to teach you that some uses of paradox or self-contradiction are quite intentional, and there for the reader to resolve in his or her own way ?
hmmmmmm ……
LikeLike
.
“So you were paid for that sort of thing, but nobody thought to teach you that some uses of paradox or self-contradiction are quite intentional, and there for the reader to resolve in his or her own way ?”
Yes, Jabba, and Toad also came to realise, with experience, that some apparent uses of paradox and self-contradiction are quite unintentional, and, in Toad’s opinion, this is one of them.
You clearly disagree and, just possibly, might even be right.
However Toad, borrowing a favourite word from your extensive lexicon, thinks your comment isbollocks.
LikeLike
.
Toad would also appreciate the reader (if indeed there any such remaining) to resolve the final sentence in his or her own way by imagining a little space between the “is,” and the “bollocks.”
(WordPress: 298 – Toad: 2 (Rain stopped play.)
LikeLike
Well perhaps ; but it’s not even certain if this is a door into one’s heart ; or a door out of one’s heart. If this is to open your heart to God, or to open it for others.
Or …. perhaps even both ?
Quite apart from which, these sorts of deliberate self-contradictions are rife in both the teachings of Christ, and those of his Church.
Fiddlesticks, then !!
LikeLike
.
Quite right, Jabba. Enough of the naughty words – between us. Free free to employ them on others, though! Particularly on Hugh Miller.
(And yes, some doors do have an irritating habit of working both ways, don’t they? As the dear old Pope was frequently wont to say, “When one door closes, another one shuts.” So very true.)
LikeLike
.
To Love God is a Gift that is Received, not Acheived
“I” before “E”, exept after “C”!
As Father Doyle used to intone to Toad when he was a Toadpole. (Toad, that is not Fr. Doyle. He was a Dominican.) ( Father Dolyle, that is, not Toad.) Sigh..
LikeLike
“I” before “E”, exept after “C”!
As Father Doyle used to intone to Toad when he was a Toadpole. (Toad, that is not Fr. Doyle. He was a Dominican.) ( Father Dolyle, that is, not Toad.) Sigh..
L after Y, but not both before and after ?
Actually, that’s a bad “rule” ; because the order of I and E (or indeed E and I) is defined individually for each word by the Dictionary, not by some vague rule of thumb 😉
LikeLike