On The Love Of God, For Mankind

Does God Love me, really?

Most people grow up and they hear that God loves them. Most Christians do at least anyway. But this is an idea that we are told time and time again especially when we are growing up. But does he really? If God loves me, why do so many bad things happen? Sometimes when we hear something over and over again it goes in one ear ear and out the other without it truly going through the trial of critical thought. To believe that God loves us, we must first attempt to understand his love. 

(trying to) Understand God’s Love

Saint Alphonsus tells a story about friends of King Louis of France, who came across a woman, who was carrying a torch in one hand, and a bucket of water in the other, when these men saw this woman, they asked her what she had planned to do with the torch and the water. She replied, “With this flame, I will torch heaven, and with this water, I will extinguish the fires of hell so that man might love God not for the reward of heaven, nor the fear of hell, but simply and solely, because he deserves to be loved.” The reason I bring this up is not to focus on the woman, but to focus on the love of God. God deserves to be loved in the same perfect, and self-less way that he has loved us. God’s love can be described in 3 different traits. God’s love is eternal, patient, and constant.

Eternal

God’s Love is eternal. God himself is timeless, and his love for us is as timeless as he is. He knew your name before you were.  The Holy Spirit tells us in scripture “I have loved you with an everlasting love” Jeremiah 31:3. Most importantly, this timeless and everlasting love is alive right now. It is aflame and burning fervently. If we go back 2000 years, how can you be sure that God loves you then? He was shedding His Blood on the cross, for love of you. If we go back to the beginning. Before Adam, before Eve, before the moon and the stars, when it was only the Holy Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what was God doing then? He was engaged with loving you. As St. Francis de Sales puts it “When did God’s love for you begin? When He began to be God. When did He begin to be God? Never, for He has always been without beginning and without end, and so He has always loved you from eternity.” 

Patient

God's love is patient. This eternal love of God has saved us. St Paul writes “We, were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.” (Ephesians 2:3) We would be sent straight to the eternal fires of hell if it wasn't for God’s love for us. But, does God love me even if I've sinned over and over again? The simple answer is that God is showing how patient his love truly is, by giving you time to repent, and graces in order to do so. However, do not presume upon this patience. For, are there not thousands of souls in hell that have sinned less than I? Who has not treated lightly or thrown away the graces given by God, as I have? Or who has grown lukewarm, as I have? Who have yet been condemned to all eternity, while we are still alive, and have this time to repent and take advantage of the graces supplied by God. A god who can watch us sin, grow lukewarm through tepidity, and throw away graces given while continuing to give us time on earth to repent, is a God of patient love. 

       Things like our troubles, trials, poverty, and tribulation, are not obstacles for loving God. But they are a mark of God's love, for us. By suffering through these penances, and suffering for love of Christ, we can be joined with Christ in his crucifixion. In this way, we can love him to the best of our ability. Which he so earnestly desires. (Will go into suffering for God more in a future essay)

  Constant       

            God’s love is constant. Many Catholics, especially traditional-leaning Catholics, struggle with trusting in the consistency of God’s love. This is something I struggled with myself. We can get into the mindset that when we fall, God’s love wavers. I struggled with only ever thinking God loved me when I was in a state of grace. But this is not who God is. When we fall, our love for Christ is timid, hesitant, or is extinguished completely. But His love for us does not change. We choose sin over him, we choose ourselves and our will over Christ. “O Lord, I have repaid Thee with ingratitude, says St. Alphonsus,  “but Thou hast said: To them that love God all things work together unto good (Rom. viii., 28). Therefore, notwithstanding the great number and the enormity of my sins, I will not despair of Thy bounty; rather let my transgressions serve to humble me the more whenever I meet with any insult”. God’s love is not bound or damaged by sin. It is a constant wave that endures all things. God is not a spiteful God, he is a loving Father. 

There is a story of a boy and his father walking through the woods, the boy eventually gets lost. The father searches frantically for about 30 minutes when he comes upon a small body of water. He quickly rushes into the water which is up to his waist, he is almost certain his 5-year-old son has drowned. He begins to yell at God and begs him to take his life away if it means his son gets to live. He tells God he can take anything, but that he just wants his son back.  This is how God the Father feels when we get lost and caught up in the world, and turn away from him. He is not loving you less but just waiting fervently for your return. He awaits in the confessional for you, with open arms. “He who loves wishes to be loved.” says St. Alphonsus. God wants to be loved by you.

Although no sin will ever stop the father from loving you, it is only right that we must show our love to him in return. “When,” says St. Bernard, “God loves, he desires nothing else than to be loved.” It is not only necessary for our salvation, but it is the just thing to do. God deserves your love more than anything or anyone else. Oftentimes, the first step we take to loving Christ is returning to him in the confessional.

God’s love is eternal, patient, and constant. But as Christians, we often still have misconceptions of His love. 

We can often confuse God and his commandments. The Ten Commandments are from God, however, God is not his commandments. Oftentimes, we view his commandments as hurdles and obstacles in the way of life, instead of seeing them in their true light of his love. We too often ask questions like;

“How far can I go before this is a sin?” 

“How close can I get to the abyss of mortal sin without sinning” 

Not only, are these not on the path of love for Christ, but they are also extremely dangerous. "A treasure is never safe," says St. Cyprian, "as long as a robber is harbored within; nor is a lamb secure while it dwells in the same den with a wolf." The saint speaks against those who do not wish to remove the occasions of sin from their life and still say: "I am not afraid that I shall fall." As no one can be secure of his treasure if he keeps a thief in his house, and as a lamb cannot be sure of its life if it remains in the den of a wolf, so likewise no one can be secure of the treasure of divine grace if he is resolved to continue in the occasion of sin. 

God’s love is sin-bearing. The love of God is also translated to the love of neighbor, this is not merely sharing sugar with your neighbor, but the love of Christ we ought to show to one neighbor is sin-bearing. It is like the loving but shameful mother, whose son was a criminal and a sinner, and who was sentenced to prison. Her sin-bearing love for him makes her despair, weep, and share in his sin. Love has made her sinful. His sin is her sin, his guilt is her guilt, and his shame is her shame. This is the love that God shows for us. His love is made manifest when he comes to earth in human form to die for us. Our sin, becomes his sin, our shame, his shame. And our guilt, his guilt. 

We are called to love Christ, as he has loved us. Not just to obey commands. When we live to merely obey commands, our heart is split in two. One half is good, and wants to obey, while the other, is in opposition. The whole person then, is not present. Love cannot be commanded. When we love, it is a movement of our whole self, it is an overflowing limitless giving of oneself, that is not something you can command from someone. Love is an act of free will, it is not a feeling, but a choice. God chooses you. Every single second, of every day. You can be sure of this because he is the only reason your heart beats. So the next time you are tempted to say something like, “I don't feel God’s Love”, find your pulse. Then, you will literally feel his love coursing through your veins. 

God loves you so much that he sent his only son to die for you. It is said that one drop of his precious blood would be enough to save 1000 worlds. if this is true, then why would he die? And not just any death, the most miserable death any man has ever suffered. Why would he go to the lengths that he did in order to suffer for you? As St. John Chrysostom puts it, “what was sufficient for redemption, was insufficient for love.” A divine and omnipotent God is willing to take human form, be beaten, mocked, and crucified by the ones he loves, for the ones he loves he would suffer that same death. If it would only save your soul. we can see what true and perfect love looks like when we look at a crucifix. He is your father who loves you and is waiting for you.

“He loves, He hopes, He waits. Our Lord prefers to wait for the sinner for years rather than keep us waiting an instant.” -St. Maria Goretti