GOD IS LOVE

By Fr Jim Cogley

From St Patrick's Confessio, its clear from his writings  that every morning he woke up, he gave thanks for just knowing that God is Love. This knowledge colors everything; just knowing that this great God who created the universe is also my God and He/She loves me totally and unconditionally. Even if I never pray, do a good deed or even do something which is wrong that love can and never will change. It just blows my mind to think that this supreme being is absolutely besotted with me and that this love permeates every cell of my being. It is literally my DNA. The more I open my heart to this wondrous realization I can experience that He withholds nothing. Like any good and generous father, He delights in His children enjoying the best. All our needs and all good gifts come from the Father of Light.

As we reflect on the life of Christ, he revealed the essence of what it meant to live in an intimate relationship of having God as ‘Abba’ Father. Abba was a Jewish term of endearment – a felt bond of union. He expressed that closeness in phrases such as ‘I get my satisfaction from doing the will of the one who sent me’, in other words the ultimate satisfaction for us humanoids is to be found in doing the will of God. He also said that ‘no one can lay hold of anything that doesn’t come from the hand of God’. Herein lies a profound teaching: Our natural tendency is to grasp and pursue what we want and when we do get it there is also the fear that it could go from us and we might lose it. Only that which comes from the generosity of God is safe, it enjoys divine protection, as long as we don’t make it into an idol where we make the gift more important than the giver.

Particularly in the world of close relationships, we tend to make and see someone else  the source of our love. It is true that God manifests His love through those closest to us both humans and animals. Yet each is but a channel of Divine love and are never the source. The temptation is always to make the other into a god and then to expect from that second love what only a first love can give. No one can give unconditional love all the time. We all have bad hair days when we get crunchy! Dogs do it so well and come as close as we can get. At the human level we fall far short and end up being disappointed. Not only do we get disappointed, but we also disappoint – it is in the nature of being human. St Catherine of Sienna once said that, ‘in life we need to experience that all people and things will ultimately disappoint us and this is necessary to bring us into relationship with the God who cannot disappoint.

Why is it that if God is Love, and desires so much more for us than we could wish for ourselves, that we don’t just throw ourselves joyfully into the arms of our all-loving creator? Probably because it means letting go of what we hold most dear; our need to be in control of our own lives. This is our EGO which can be understood in terms of some useful acronyms like ‘Edging God Out’ or ‘Even God Outside’. The ego is that part of us that only can only live in the past or the future but never in the present. It causes us to live in our heads and tortures us with mistakes and regrets from our past and fills us with anxiety, fear and worry for the future. It excludes us from that central place of the present where in the words of the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich ‘all things are well and all manner of things will be well’. The present is also the place of heart connection where we experience Divine Presence. This is the sacred ‘Now’ of life that we miss so easily even if it is our ultimate appointment with identity, meaning, purpose and destiny.

There are so many good and religious people who approach the end of their days as the time they have always dreaded as it signifies the day of Judgment. This is a harsh commentary on the kind of religion he or she was brought up with. It presented a God of fear who was harsh and judgmental and while He did forgive, He never forgot and all our misdeeds were recorded in His little red book. It should be the hallmark of a healthy spirituality to be able to look forward to one’s final passing over as a totally joyful reunion. If I know my God it should not involve fear but a return home to someone who has loved me from the beginning, someone I have always loved, and someone who longs and waits for my return. The entry into eternal life has to be the ultimate new lease of life, into that realm where ‘no eye has seen and no ear has heard what good things God has in store for those who love Him’.