In recent months, well truly at least for the last year, I’ve been discerning. Discerning God’s purpose for me, His true will, His path for me in life. I’ve never felt closer to that old Merton prayer than I do right now, you know, where it says, My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But then I listened to a video reflection yesterday from this young woman who dealt with depression and addiction and through her process she was once talking with her spiritual director. She mentioned how she loved to do art and how it was therapeutic, and she used it for kids to help them cope while on mission trips, and she felt called to do this same type of thing here in the U.S. – teaching others how to use art and calligraphy as a spiritual therapy.
Anyway, she told her spiritual director she felt called to this by God, and so she asked “How do I know if it is God’s will?” The priest laughed and told her, “God’s will is simply for us to love. Can you love through your work, through your art?”
I paused the video and pondered on that for a few minutes. Isn’t that the truth? I myself have said in the past – often – that we as individual people think too much. Our God, the Holy Trinity, and our Catholic Faith is mysterious and amazing, and yet, simple. It is simply about one thing – Love. Through all the theology and questions of meaning and purpose, through all the dissection and interpretation of Scripture, the contemplation of the mysteries of our faith, the search for signs and countless prayers – it boils down to one, simple, truth.
God’s will is for us to love.
That’s all God does for us. That’s all God has ever done for us. He’s loved us. He loves us.
Today is Father’s Day here in the United States, where we celebrate fathers and the vocation, and if you look at it from the Christian perspective – the ministry – of fatherhood. You know, obviously, this day took on a whole new meaning when I became a father.
Of course I love my wife and we live for each other, and there is that sacramental covenant there that cannot be broken. But when I look at my son, and envision the things I want for him, the good I want for him, the happiness I want for him, it’s a yearning deep inside me. It’s a love that almost aches in my heart.
Think of how God feels for us. Think of how Jesus felt all those years ago, hanging on that cross, the love He had for us. Try, if you can, to imagine even a fraction, a single drop of God’s love right there, as He watched His Son do the very thing He had put Him on earth to do, yet writhed in pain.
Imagine, if you can, Jesus’ love for us, as He looked out at the people who persecuted Him, the sin in the world past, present, and future, knowing that we do not know and realize what we are doing – His deep divine love for us.
Then think to yourself – what if that was it? What if Christ died and then rose from the dead, but then never came back to us? What if God said, okay, my Son did what He was supposed to do and now humanity is saved and they will listen and believe and everything will be as it should have been in the beginning? They don’t need my help anymore.
God knows better. He knows that we still have free will, and He sent His Son in the flesh to be with us, to be one of us, to teach us, and to die for us. And God knows that it was not a one time event.
Like any good Father, He knows that His children need regular loving care and mercy, and also discipline to make it through this life. And of course, God is the best father the world has ever known or will ever know. He knows that we continuously need Him in our lives, a constant renewal – every day – if we are to become who He designed us to be, and live out His will for us, which is to love.
Nope, God is not a one and done god. We need a routine.
His grace is all around us, living through other people, in the beauty of this world, and in the Sacraments. But its in the Eucharist where He is there – perpetual, living and in the flesh. What a simple, but genius means for God to provide us a way to come more into communion with Him, to join with Him, to become more like Him. Jesus tells us point blank:
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.
As a father, I let my son make his own choices. Of course, the magnitude and spectrum of these choices broadens as he grows. Yet, I keep trying to give him the tools and the lessons and the knowledge with which he can hopefully make better choices more often than not.
The Sacraments are our tools that Jesus gives to us to grow in faith and grace. But the Eucharist is that secret weapon – it is the only way in which we truly receive Jesus fully into our body and soul, where as Saint Paul says, we have “a participation in the blood of Christ…” and “a participation in the body of Christ…” The precious Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist is not a mere symbol – it is Him, in the flesh, that we participate in, that we come into communion with, that we share, that we join into. It is the ultimate Fatherly hug and embrace, that ultimate act of Love.
And this is God’s will for us – to Love. Learning how to do so though, and do so regularly, is difficult, especially in trying conditions, with people who are not so easy to love, or in a job that may not be as conducive to love.
It’s simple really. Perseverance is key, but we also need to use the tools we’ve been given – none greater than the Eucharist.
If we persevere in our present situation while reconciling when we do wrong and sharing, joining with Him through the Eucharist, He will give us the ability to love, and put us into situations where we can love more fully.
After all, that is God’s Fatherly will for us – to Love.
Happy Fathers Day to all you fathers in the U.S. and around the world!
