AMBITION FOR LOVE OF GOD



SAINTS CORNELIUS, POPE, AND CYPRIAN, BISHOP, MARTYRS

1 Cor 12:31-13:13; Ps 33:2-5,12,22; Lk 7:31-35

A Good and Worthy Ambition

God is infinite in every perfection. But the central perfection that best defines God's goodness is love. The first letter of Saint John 4:8 tells us that God is love, and anyone who loves is close to God. So, our growth in virtue of love is certain evidence that we are becoming like God. Recall that the purpose of our creation is to become like God. So, love advances us on the way of perfection more than any other virtue. Saint Paul understood this and encouraged us to be ambitious for the gift of love. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit, for he is specifically called Love. “Be ambitious for the higher gifts. And I am going to show you a way that is better than any of them.” The gift of love is more than any other spiritual gift, for loving leads us to immediate sharing in divine life. Love hits the mark, the bull’s eye. The other spiritual gifts only help us to draw nearer to God when we use them well enough. Those other gifts are different from God; one can possess them without God. Thus, Paul writes: “If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all.” We rarely pay close attention to these profound statements.

Even charity can miss the mark if it makes sacrifice for self-glorification. Prioritizing self-love is not acceptable, for it misses the mark. It is not selfish love of self that is praised or acceptable, but the love of God. Hence, Paul continues: “If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever.” So, we have emphasized that the first motive of Jesus’ suffering is not the love for us, but for his Father, and then for us. Therefore, the precept of love is that we love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, before loving our neighbours as ourselves. Our love for God is what is described as unending. “Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end.” Love of God is unending because God is everlasting. Our love takes the nature of its object. If we love creatures, then it is a creaturely love; but if we love God, then our love endures, because God lives for ever. Our love for God does not depend on passing pleasures or configuration of things here on earth because God is immutable. The imperfection of our love for God comes from our imperfect knowledge of him. Hence, it is supported by faith and hope here on earth. “The knowledge that I have now is imperfect; but then I shall know as fully as I am known.” Even the imperfect love of God in us now is more precious than anything creatures can offer.

Because love increases with knowledge of the object of our love, the only way to grow our love for God is to attend more to Jesus Christ. He is the perfect knowledge of the Father. Our Lord cajoled the people who refused to accept his words as misguided or blind. “What description can I find for the men of this generation? What are they like? They are like children shouting to one another while they sit in the market-place: “We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn’t dance; we sang the dirges, and you wouldn’t cry.”” Are we similar to the generation he criticised? Are we contemplating the word and works of God to love Him more? Are we offering our lives to God to praise and glorify him as the Psalmist enjoins us to do? “Give thanks to the Lord upon the harp, with a ten-stringed lute sing him songs.” The joys and trials of this mortal life ought to fan the love of God in the hearts of the faithful. The lives of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian demonstrate this.

Saints Cornelius and Cyprian knew the love of God in Jesus Christ and devoted their lives to the Church of God. Cornelius was made bishop of the church in Rome in 251. He fought against the Novatian schismatics and, aided by Cyprian, established his authority. Emperor Gallus exiled him, and he died at Civitavecchia in 253. Cyprian was born in Carthage and practiced law. He was converted to Christianity and became the bishop of Carthage in 249. He steered the church through troubled times. He suffered under the persecution of Emperor Decius; he went into hiding to look after the church. He was executed during the persecution of Emperor Valerian in 258, after a public trial. May their prayers aid us to grow in our love for God.

Let us pray: O God, who gave Saint Cornelius and Cyprian to your people as diligent shepherds and valiant martyrs, grant that through their intercession we may be strengthened in faith and constancy and spend ourselves without reserve for the unity of the Church. 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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GOD IS LOVE

Image
SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS   Deut 7:6-11; Ps 103:1-4,6-8,10; 1 Jn 4:7-16; Mt 11:25-30 Great Things hidden from the Wise We celebrate the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ is a mystery, as coming from the mystery of the Son of Man. The human heart of Jesus Christ is a symbol and reality of the love of the Son of Man for his brothers and sisters. It is a human representation of the heart or love of the Son of God for us, his own people and creatures. As he revealed in Heb 2:14, that he took on our nature, that he may share everything in common with us. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death.” The Father brought us into existence to be the inheritance and the companions of His Beloved Son. The love of the Son for his own could not let him be, but made him take on our nature and appear among ...
Read more

CALLED TO KNOW AND PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL

Image
THE CONVERSION SAINT PAUL, APOSTLE Acts 22:3-16; Ps 117; Mk 16:15-18 Proclamation of the Gospel of the New Covenant Celebrating the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul brings us to a deeper reflection on the meaning and implication of the new covenant in Jesus Christ. As Paul himself narrated in the first reading to his people in Jerusalem, he was so zealous in the practice of Judaism, the religion of his fathers, that his eyes were closed to the new realities and relations God had brought into existence. Though these new realities and relations were prophesied by the prophets and the Law pointed to them, Paul and many of his contemporaries were blind to them. His words are: “I am a Jew and was born at Tarsus in Cilicia. I was brought up here in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was taught the exact observance of the Law of our ancestors. In fact, I was as full of duty towards God as you are today.” These words of Paul testify that zeal without the knowledge of the will o...
Read more

ESTABLISHING OURSELVES IN HIS PRESENCE

Image
THE 6TH DAY OF OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS     1 Jn 2:12-17; Ps 96:7-10; Lk 2:36-40 Recognising the Incarnate Word for Self The Church, in the opening prayer, prays for the new revelation of God in the flesh to commence its purpose of setting us free from the bondage of sin and servitude to evil. The fact of the Incarnation means that human nature is redeemed in principle, by God joining it to the Eternal Word in a hypostatic union. The Lamb, the Word in human flesh, is already sacrificed to God, waiting for the consummation of the sacrifice on Calvary. Thus, He already started the work of redemption in principle, each of us must now appropriate the result of the redemption. The purpose of his appearance in human flesh is that he may enter our minds as God, who created us in love. He comes to receive us back into his company; this requires he enters the temple within each of us. We must recognise what he has already done for the love of us and respond in a similar gesture b...
Read more