DISCOVERING GOD'S LOVE
SAINT PIUS X, POPE
Ezek 37:1-14; Ps 107:2-9;
Mt 22:34-40
The Knowledge of Divine
Love
Our life here on earth is
a journey to communion with God. As we pointed out in our reflection yesterday,
understanding the goal of life illuminates our origin and true identity. God
has made sufficient provision for our wayfaring through life to divine communion.
Each of us can be compared to a child whose parents left under the care of a
guardian and travelled of necessity. They made every provision for the child's
upbringing, but placed all in the care of the guardian, who is to raise the
child with all the provisions, so that he would gradually grow and come into
his inheritance with them. The understanding of the provisions, the care the
parents put in place for his welfare and upbringing, and the wealth he is to
inherit in due time give the child an idea of his parents' love and goodwill.
But if the child pays no attention to these things, thinks only of himself,
complains that his parents are not physically present to care for him, he will
never comprehend their love for him; and will fall short of loving them in
return. God’s love and divine providence are everywhere evident, but our eyes
are not opened to his loving provisions for us; and we do not listen to our
guardian. Without listening to our guardian, understanding these provisions and
the love of God, journeying to our eternal inheritance would be difficult, if
not impossible.
God teaches us this
lesson and illustrates it through the life of the people of Israel. They are
the people God chose to teach all peoples and nations how to inherit the
eternal communion with God. God made every provision for the upbringing and
care of Israel, whom he named his firstborn. He placed him under the Law and
the Prophets as his guardian. But Israel failed to see and understand the
divine providence and love in the provision God made for them. They failed to
grow in their love for Yahweh and rather abandoned their guardian, and wandered
into the path of destruction and death. God revealed the condition of the
disobedient people of Israel to the Prophet Ezekiel. “The hand of the Lord was
laid on me, and he carried me away by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in
the middle of a valley, a valley full of bones. He made me walk up and down
among them. There were vast quantities of these bones on the ground the whole
length of the valley; and they were quite dried up. He said to me, ‘Son of man,
can these bones live?” The bones came to life again when God sent his word.
Both the house of Israel and the whole human race are like these dead bones
with the word of God. Our dead bones arose at the Incarnation of the Eternal
Word of God, who reveals the love of God the Father to us. By his life,
passion, death, and resurrection, he showed forth the Father’s love and
compassion, thereby making himself our way, truth, and life. This is the full
meaning of Ezekiel’s vision and activity in the valley of dried bones.
The Law and the Prophets
constitute the guardians of Israel. But each of us, with faith in Jesus Christ,
now plays a guardian to souls. As we reflected yesterday, we are all shepherds
of the Lord’s flock in different capacities. The Law and the Prophets come
alive in each of us as we advance in divine love. Our Lord captured this when
he responded to the Pharisees’ question on the greatest commandment. “Jesus
said, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The
second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself. On these two
commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets also.’” Pope Saint Pius X
understood this very well and set out in his pontificate to renew all things in
Jesus Christ through love and adherence to the Lord’s teaching in the Gospel.
He was born in the village of Riese, near Venice, one of ten children of a very poor family. He was ordained to the priesthood at the age of 23. He successively became bishop of Mantua and of Venice. In 1903 he was elected Pope against his wish. As the Pope, he devoted all his efforts to restore all things in Christ through campaigning for freedom of the Church from state control, barring the clergy from temporal offices and social organisations, revising the code of Canon Law, promoting scriptural studies and translations, reforming the liturgy, the love of poverty, and regular preaching of the Gospel to all. In his simplicity and goodness of heart, he performed miracles even while alive, so that the call for his canonisation started immediately after his death on 20th August, 1914. He was heartbroken at the outbreak of the First World War. May his prayers aid us to devote ourselves to Jesus Christ.
Let us pray: O God, who to safeguard the Catholic faith and to restore all things in Christ, filled Pope Saint Pius the Tenth with heavenly wisdom and apostolic fortitude, graciously grant that, following his teaching and example, we may gain an eternal prize. 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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