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No. 64 -
April
2009
Have you loved me too
Late?
The past and the future! Two phases in my life! I strongly feel the need to
consider my past and look into my future. A superficial survey of the past
makes me feel uneasy, wasted time I feel. As for the future, emptiness
beckons me on, mockingly it seems. As long as I limit my past and future
only to myself, I feel depressed, with very little to be grateful for, and
even less to hope for. My life has indeed shrunk to what I can make it at
present. It is imperative to look deeper into my past and future, and I know
that the way to do it is to give importance to the One who plays the supreme
part in anyone’s past and future. God who created me did not leave me to my
own devices, but has accompanied me and taken a vital part in my past even
as he will in the future. I feel at peace and encouraged to search out the
treasure my past has been and to face the future with joy and hope.
I consider slowly the places where I have been living, the countries, the
houses, the schools, and the clubs. I consider more slowly the people I have
dealt with, parents, brothers, sisters, mentors, coworkers, beneficiaries,
people who loved me and others who loved me less. I consider most carefully
my dealings with myself, my behaviour, thoughts, convictions, fantasies,
decisions. When I concentrate on myself I realize lots of failure, when I
concentrate on God in my life I sense merciful love.
With merciful love, incarnated in the Lord Jesus, my Christ, I will look
into my past and in the Lord’s healing gaze see it for what it really is
now, as I look at it. I will not look at my past years as part of secular
history, but as saved, healed, sacred history. I will look into my own
history of salvation. Even as I write this, those words God spoke to
Jeremiah the prophet come to my mind: “Before I formed you in the womb I
knew you, before you were born I dedicated you.” (Jeremiah 1: 5) And also:
“The Lord has called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my
name.” (Isaiah 49: 1). In all aspects of my past life the Lord has been
deeply interested, not as a bystander, but deeply involved, working through
all for my good and transforming all into love, I loving him more and he
loving me more. I look into my past to experience God’s fidelity and
constant loving care, so that I may praise him more. I want to sing forever
of his enduring mercies.
In my life I find so much to be grateful for, family, schooling, religious
life, priesthood, so many people who took a direct interest in me, for my
good. All this is apart from the fact that I always found at hand whatever
was necessary to pursue my ends and ideals. Especially I remember those who
loved me. Now that my life has suddenly shrunk, as it were, and become more
centred on God as the One in the midst of all my life, I realize that often
I have not been thankful to God. Shall I let bygones be bygones? The Lord
before whom my past is really present, tells me to thank him now for the
gifts for which I never thanked Him, for what I took for granted. He accepts
my thanks now, not as some belated thanks, but as given on each occasion and
event meriting thanks to Him. My past ‘positives’ become now offerings of
thanks, offerings which are effective even now, in me. These wonderful
events of the past become his mercies to me now.
What about what was not so nice in my life? Mistakes, for example, for which
there was no solution. I have had to live with them as some black spots on
my personality. As I remember them, the Lord asks me to bring them to him,
to give them to him, and he takes them and their consequences on himself. He
frees me from burdens I have carried for long. Where there was a burden, I
find love and the freedom to live as a son of God. The Lord tells us who are
burdened to come to him and find rest. I go through this experience again
and again.
I remember my sins, when I really offended my Creator and Friend. These have
been forgiven by the good Lord. Of this I am convinced. Even so these sinful
acts have generated in me a lack of trust in God’s love for me in
particular. This lack of trust has been the cause of intense sorrow even
though I remember again and again his consoling words: “Come let us talk
this over . . . though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as
snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Isaiah 1:
18) I feel again and again the Lord inviting me to prayer: “Take and receive
all my sinfulness….”
“I will sing of the faithful love of the Lord forever…
For you have said, love is built to last forever.” (Psalm 89)
As I look back on my sinfulness, I feel a prayer welling up from my heart,
‘O happy faults’! They have drawn on me all the love of the Lord, and will
continue to do so.
A chapter that looms large in my memory is entitled ‘love’ or ‘lack of
love’. As I read through it the old storms seem to rise once more in my
heart: hatred, lack of forgiveness, anger, revenge, quarrelling, murder. By
self-discipline I can perhaps control these intense emotions even though
they raise up their ugly heads again and again, often when least expected.
The Lord comes into these situations, and he invites me to place them one by
one, as they arise, into his heart burning with love. I notice that I often
take them back from his heart and try to deal with them myself, but the Lord
insists with me that he is the one who can deal effectively with them and
change lack of love into love. Every time I tend to concentrate on my lack
of love, the Lord reminds me that I have to concentrate on him. “God is
love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.” (1John
4:16)
What has happened to my high ideals and dreams of old? Maybe they were
destined for disappointment and cynicism? How I would have liked to convert
the entire world for God, or at least my native country or the people I have
ministered to. There was one person, however, who I thought did not need
conversion, and that was I. Now I feel I might as well continue on with the
process of conversion, but this time concentrate on myself most of all. This
is the Lord’s doing I know. He did not take away my ideals and dreams as so
much useless baggage from the past. Instead he makes me realize that he is
the Saviour of mankind, not I. So I keep following and serving him and not
pretend that I am in front. What looks like a failure has been invested with
a new divine energy. This leads me to consider my future.
I take a stand with my Lord Jesus and together we look into my future, or
rather our future. I notice that he seems not to be looking at particular
events, as if he knows all beforehand, but simply into the future. Although
all is apparent to him, yet he really is walking into the future with me as
one for whom the present is all that is known to him. He really discusses
and shares about the future with me as I do with him.
Jesus tells me to look, not with my eyes, limited in vision, but with my
heart, at the whole world. My tendency is to concentrate on a small section
of mankind, the one I can reach and appeal to. My life has now become
limited and I accept it. Jesus
has however other ideas. He wants me to look at the whole of mankind, which
I try to do, being conscious at the same time that I am indeed limited.
Jesus reminds me that I can always start praying and interceding for
mankind. As I well know, prayer and intercession are the first and
indispensable steps in any apostolate. Jesus himself was a very active
person, but first and foremost prayerful. It becomes clear to me that the
Lord is inviting me to share in his continuing intercession for mankind.
“Therefore he is always able to save those who approach God through him,
since he lives forever to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7: 25) “It
is Christ who died, rather was raised, who also is at the right hand of God,
who indeed intercedes for us.” (Romans 8: 34) The whole of mankind has now
become my parish. The Lord is giving me a new mission far beyond my limits.
As I meet people in my home and in the streets, as I see people on
television, and read about them in newspapers, as I read history and look at
younger generations, an obligation wells up in my heart: I must pray for
them and wish them good. I begin to sense that lack of love, in whatever
form, must no longer be accepted as part of my life, but must be rejected in
favour of love. What a challenge! Without love in thoughts, words and deeds,
prayer and intercession lose their value and meaning. “God is love.” (1John
5: 16), and without love, God would be an idol. Each living person can
assert of a loving God, that he is “My God”.
The mission God has given me does not end with death. It will continue as
long as there is mankind to pray for. In heaven Jesus continues to intercede
for mankind, and I want to join him in this ministry. This ministry is in
fact part of the heavenly life of all the saints and of all our beloved dead
ones who pray for us as we pray for them. As St Therese of Lisieux put it “I
want to spend my heaven doing good on earth.”
Questions for reflection:
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As Christians we are called to share in the prophetic
ministry of Jesus. Prophets always interceded for their people.
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Jesus told his followers that they are the light of the
world, i.e. the light of Jesus.
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'Money makes the world go round.' Maybe it is love and
intercession that makes the world go round!
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Some parts of our past had better been left alone. We can
decide to be simplistic about ourselves. We need the truth.
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Our life is not divided into past, present and future. We
live it as one whole event.
Fr. Victor Degabriele S.J.
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Surrender to love, discovering the heart of
Christian Spirituality.
David G. Brenner.
Mumbai, India, St. Paul’s Press, 2003. Pages 103.
ISBN 81-7109-635-2
God is surrendered to
each of us. Why not surrender to Him? In whatever circumstance, condition,
place, time, God is always ‘for me’, my God. Why shouldn’t I be always and
in all circumstances ‘for Him’?
Any belief in God goes beyond the notional, it goes into the heart. Here we
end up with a problem because each of us wants to be ‘in control’ of
reality, at least in so far as it concerns us. We are not inclined to accept
the will of anyone, not even God’s. We prefer being ‘alone’, even though we
deny this. The alternative is to become vulnerable, to accept the fact that
we need to be loved, we need someone to surrender to us. Fortunately loving
surrender, needs to be given in order to be received, and vice versa. In
order to receive love one needs to give trust, to give oneself. There is no
other way.
It can happen that our Faith remains uninteresting to us because it is more
in the mind than in the heart. It can become simply be a question of knowing
about God rather than knowing God. Faith can be considered as an adventure
to embark on, man being the initiator and controller. Modern man has become
proud and self-sufficient. Reality shows that modern man has impoverished
himself. What man needs are not many things, whatever these happen to be,
but much love.
Love and self-surrender go hand in hand. The paradox lies in the fact that
if one wants to find the self, one must needs surrender that self, to love.
Fr. Victor Degabriele SJ
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