GOD'S INFINITE LOVE FOR MAN


SAINT PIUS V, POPE  

Acts 5:17-26; Ps 34:2-9; Jn 3:16-21

God’s Infinite Love for Man

Our Lord’s discussion with Nicodemus focuses on God’s love for the world. This love made God set up his Son as the Son of Man to attract man to salvation. God desired to naturally and gradually draw us to himself. The attraction to the Son of Man employs nothing unnatural, for it is never the will of God to coerce man into doing anything, but that he may freely and gratefully exercise his freedom of will in coming to his Creator and God. Thus, he set up his only Begotten Son as the Son of Man that he may draw us by what is naturally human in us. As we love what is truly human in the Son of Man, we may fall in love with the Son of God, who assumed our nature to identify with us in all things but sin. The Lord describes the wonders of God’s love for us. “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.” The Son of God is the salvation of the world that came into being through him, for only he can repair the world destroyed by sin. But he modelled the salvation he fashioned for the world on the form of man for it to be well received. Since the problem is inside man, namely, the absence of God in us, God offers the solution within the Son of Man. The solution is faith in the Son of Man that brings the Son of God to live in us.

The story of the Son of Man attracts us to him and prepares us for an encounter with him. But we encounter him not as the Son of Man but as the risen Lord. Only faith makes this encounter possible because the risen Lord is the Son of Man glorified with his Godhead. We heard the story only and never physically encountered the Son of Man. We are nevertheless attracted to him because he lives in the storytellers or the Gospel preachers who believe the story they recount for us. If we claim to believe the Gospel and fail to bring to life the story of the Son of Man by our lives, then we are not true to our claim. Our failure to live his life only indicates our failure to submit to the cleansing power of his blood in the acknowledgment and confession of our sins. “No one who believes in him will be condemned; but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son.” The Lord explains that the condemnation is based on our preference for darkness and evil over light and goodness, which are natural to us. The frictions, sufferings, and hardship in the world are because of these two preferences; those who prefer sin, darkness, and evil imbibe the devil’s hatred of everything human, natural, and godly, loved by friends of the Son of Man.

The Acts of Apostles shows these two groups of people and their preferences. The high priest and his supporters from the party of the Sadducees hated the Son of Man and crucified him. They would not want to hear the story of the Son of Man; they hate to encounter him in any way. But those the Son of Man touched, who believe in his glory, cannot stop proclaiming the truth they have come to know and imbibe. Every Christian is involved in this enduring battle between what is genuinely human and godly and what is inhuman, distorted, deformed, and death-dealing to humankind. Our experience of the love of God revealed in the Son of Man makes us ready to encounter evil everywhere with the same divine love. Pope Saint Pius V was preoccupied with this mission. He was born in 1504 near the Italian town of Alexandria on the Adriatic. He joined the Dominicans and taught theology as a priest. As a bishop, he worked on the reformation of the clergy. He was elected Pope in 1566. He devoted his papacy to promoting the Catholic Reformation, started by the Council of Trent. He also reformed the liturgy and encouraged missionary work. Our vocation is to reveal this love of God for man through our lives.

Let us pray; O God, who in your providence raised up Pope Saint Pius the Fifth in your Church that the faith might be safeguarded and more fitting worship be offered to you, grant, through his intercession, that we may participate in your mysteries with lively faith and fruitful charity. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

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