Nihil Sine Deo

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Designed with WordPress

Category: To know God

  • Only love can repay love 

    by

    ,

    “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” (Matt 21:22). In this passage we see how generous our Lord, Jesus Christ, is with us. First, He tells us how to obtain what we ask – “in prayer” – and then He also instructs us what we should do for our hearts to be truly in prayer and receive what we ask for – “have faith”.  

    We can ask God for “whatever” – there is no limit to what we can ask God. Although there is no limit, for nothing is beyond God’s power and “everything is possible with God” (Matt 19:26, Luke 1:37), there are two conditions that God who is love (cf. 1 John 4:8) asks of us when we ask something of Him (how personal and intimate He is with us!). 

    The first condition is that we ask whatever our hearts desire “in prayer”. Ah, prayer, the language of love, the action of love. St. Charles de Foucauld in his meditations wrote that “when one loves, one longs to be always in converse with him one loves, or at least to be always in his sight. Prayer is nothing else.” 

    What can we do in this world but to pray for one another? Nothing, nothing at all. Prayer is the ultimate manifestation of love for one another. Sure, if we can help materially each other, we most certainly should do that immediately – but that too is prayer! However, when distance separates us, alone in our rooms, in the silence of a heart in love (not “fallen” in love, but willfully, awake, risen in love) what can we do?  

    We can kneel, silence our minds as much as we can, turn our hearts towards the Eternal Eyes of God, and in that stillness that is nothing else but a living fragment of eternity, we say the words our Saviour taught us: “Our Father…” (Matt 6:9-13). As such, in prayer, we can never ask something just for ourselves – there is no “I” in the Church; He is our Father, not “my” Father.  

    Prayer, the language and act of love, always acknowledges the other. If we pray just for ourselves, are we really in prayer? When we ask the Lord’s help with this or that, do we truly not think of the bigger good that encompasses another person or persons? 

    No matter the distance then, by praying for one another, we can do much. Indeed, as St Charles de Focauld said elsewhere, by prayer we can do anything (“whatever”!). When we pray, we give up to God, we offer to Him, the limited time that we have from Him. If we do this for him, or her, or them, do we not truly die a little for those people whom we mention in prayer? Are we not giving up part of our limited time to remember their names before Almighty God? Isn’t prayer a sacrifice in this sense?  

    God has loved us so much that He both prayed for us and suffered death for us. As St Thérèse of Lisieux wrote: “Only love can repay love”. Sometimes we are asked to make the final sacrifice for God or for others and to give up our whole lives for them then and there. These are acts of martyrdom. However, we can do this, bit by bit, in the quietness of our hearts when we pray for others. To sacrifice our lives for others, out of love for them, is highly commended by our Lord (cf John 15:13). 

    When we ask God for whatever in love (i.e. “in prayer”) that thing is good and pleasing to Him, because to love is to will the good of the other (and of ourselves). We cannot pray for something evil, that is for something that is against God’s will. As St Francis de Sales taught, we can know God’s will from His commandments to us (to love Him and one another) and from His counsels that are given to us to aid us in becoming more like Him. Prayer, the language and act of love, requires that we love. We cannot pray otherwise, no matter what words we use or what images we conjure in our minds. 

    Consequently, the first condition set out by Jesus, in line with His commandment that we should love one another as He has loved us (cf John 13:34-35, John 15:12), ensures that our ask is pleasing to the Father. Behold His generosity: God tells us to ask and how to do it! 

    The second condition is to “have faith”. Faith is hope in God (cf Heb 11:1). Faith is the assent of the soul to God’s existence and will (St John of the Cross). Faith is proof that the Holy Spirit, the giver of faith, dwells in our soul (cf Rom 10:17). Faith conquers the world (cf 1 John 5:4). 

    In other words, our Lord is asking us to ask anything in love, having hope in God. It was not sufficient for our Saviour to tell us how to ask for what our hearts desire, but to rest assure in Him who is Life and Love Eternal, because, as the Psalmist says, His “mercy endures forever” (Ps 136). 

    Faith, however, is a gift. It is not akin to blind trust, nor is it something we can imagine or reason our way into it. Faith is given – and is given to all, especially to those who ask for it, and most certainly to those who seek God truthfully.  

    As any gift, faith is free – freely given and, importantly, it must be freely accepted (just like love). Faith cannot be forced, and God so respects the freedom of His creatures that He never forces His graces. He liberally gives faith in so many forms: through nature, through another person, through inspirations, through His words recorded in the Scriptures, through the Sacraments. Man must respond. Will he accept this gift, of knowing Love Eternal? 

    We can therefore understand the message of our Lord with which we have started this meditation as such: Knowing who God is, ask whatever you desire in love and “you will receive”. 

    Jesus does not say when or how we shall receive what we ask in prayer with faith – because if we did ask for it in prayer with faith then we have the certainty that we shall receive. 

    Image credit: Jean-François Millet, The Angelus, 1857-59

  • “Before the foundation of the world” 

    by

    The title comes from John 17:24. It is part of the priestly prayer of Jesus for the Church. Our Lord is asking His Father that those who believe in Him may be with Him where He is, to behold His glory which God the Father has given Him in His love “before the foundation of the world”.  

    Those words echo a line from the Book of Proverbs: “before the beginning of the earth” (Prov 8:23). The New Testament completes this revelation by enlarging the majesty of Eternal Wisdom over all creation, signified by the word “world”, not just over the earth. This is possible because of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh (cf John 1:14), “the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24) having come to dwell among us. 

    Perhaps the author of the Book of Proverbs, being part of the Old Testament revelation, did not know that the wisdom of God is, in fact, the Wisdom of God, the Word of God who is God (cf John 1:1). Maybe for this reason we read: “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old” (Prov 8:22). 

    Perhaps the writer of the line quoted just above knew that he was speaking of God Himself and not of a creature, but he was unable to express it properly in words: eternity can be understood imperfectly only by man, who is in time. For example, even St John, who rested his head on the breast of our Lord (cf John 13:23), when he wrote of the Word of God, he used a vocabulary of time to depict eternity: “In the beginning…” (John 1:1). 

    Perhaps the reason for tying together time and timelessness is to show how close God is to His creation: He who has no time, Who owns time, Who made time, and everything else that does have a beginning, a beginning out of nothing but God’s love, came in time to His creatures. Indeed, this appears so from the words of Wisdom Himself spoken through the author of the book of Proverbs, saying that He is “rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men” (Prov 8:31). 

    Perhaps the use of language that denotes time was purposely used to denote that it is a creature speaking of the Creator; the language of man, even the words addressed to God (our prayers), passes through the “dimly” mirror of time (1 Cor 13:12): for us there is always a beginning. 

    “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1). “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work” (Prov 8:22). “I am the […] beginning and the end” (Rev 22:12). 

    • There is one “beginning” which refers to “before the foundation of the world” (cf John 1:1). 
    • There is one “beginning” which refers to “the foundation of the world” (cf Gen 1:1). 
    • There is one “beginning” which refers to the eternal through the eyes and understanding of man before Christ (cf Prov 8:22). 
    • There is one “beginning” which refers to the eternal through the eyes and understanding of man after Christ (cf Rev 22:12). 

    Image credit: Caspar David Friedrich, Dawn, undated

  • “Love has been found” 

    by

    The words that make up the title of this article were spoken by St Veronica Giuliani, and were recorded in her diary. They refer to Jesus Christ, to His Heart, opened by a spear for us all to behold His love for us (cf John 19: 33-34). These words are a response to the only question that man, throughout all ages, has asked – and, billions of people, even today, continue to ask: “Who is God?” This is the most profound longing of our hearts: to know God.  

    “Who are you, O God, and who am I?” was the prayer of St Francis of Assisi. Did St Veronica or St Francis not know the answer, found all over the Bible, but explicitly so in the first letter of St John: “God is love” (1 John 4:8)? Of course they did. But this is the mystery of Love: “Love never ends” (1 Cor 13: 8). It is a continuous journey, that begins here, with faith – man’s response to God’s revelation, and which ends with the beatific vision in Heaven, a journey that is eternal, into the infinite Heart of God, made known to all by His Son, Jesus Christ, the image of the Father (cf Col 1:15, John 14:9). 

    Ah! What can the words of man say about such mystery, such beauty, such love! Where to begin, for God has no beginning: He is the beginning of everything created. God is love! Who would have thought? Certainly, nobody! Reading through the pagan literature of the Greeks and the Romans, there are so many instances that betray man’s most intimate desire, to know who God is. Man can ignore but he cannot – can never – deny God’s existence, for on his very soul, the image of his Creator is set, as a “seal” on his heart (CC 8:6). Deep within himself, man sees the Eternal Eyes that watch him with love and mercy: “Who are you, O God, and who am I?” 

    Without Jesus Christ, there can be no answer to this question, because between God and his creation, there is an infinite gap: “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1: 14), precisely so that we can know Him, the thrice holy God, for by knowing God, we may have eternal life (cf John 17:3). It is because of Jesus, “Son of David” (Matt 1:1), “Son of Joseph” (John 6:42), “Son of Mary” (cf Luke 1:31), that man can know God, who He is – that He is He who is (cf Exo 3:14). It is impossible – impossible – to ever praise Christ enough for this infinite gift of inestimable, pure, divine value. What can man say, but to repeat the words of St John of the Cross from his “Spiritual Canticle”:  

    “Reveal Your presence,  

    And let the vision and Your beauty kill me,  

    Behold the malady  

    Of love is incurable  

    Except in Your presence and before Your face.” 

    Love is un-understandable. Reason is too small for comprehending love. Imagination is too erratic for showing love’s true essence. Feelings are too ephemeral for them to be the basis for love. Our senses fail to embrace love. Faith alone allows man to reach and touch this mystery of mysteries, bigger than reason, perfectly harmonious, never ending, incomprehensible: through and by faith man understands love, he understands what cannot be understood, he understands that love cannot be explained, that love is the basis of everything, that love is really, actually, Love. 

    It is certainly no coincidence that the Bible is the greatest love story. This is the case for two reasons: firstly, because this story is no story at all, but the very reality from which stories come, and secondly, because it is Love Itself, eternal and invincible, that reaches out to man, whose love was broken by sin, to bring him back into Its intimate, everlasting life. 

    Image credit: Giuseppe Cesari, The Agony in the Garden, undated

  • “Out of nothing” 

    by

    ,

    Nothing can be made out of nothing (Lucretius, On the Nature of Things). God creates freely out of nothing (CCC 296). Reason suggests that the former statement is true. Faith requires the latter to be held as true. But faith and reason are not opposed to one another, they are not even separated by an invisible wall that permits them to run alongside one another but never to intermingle. Faith and reason overlap, the former elevating the latter, the latter guiding the former.  

    Precisely because of their compatibility, one instilled by nature, the other given by grace which works on and builds upon nature, man can reach a deeper understanding – although not a complete one – of the ontological dimension of being. This understanding however cannot be reached without revelation from God of Who He is. Without Him reaching out to man to open for us the door to His intimate life, through revelation, man cannot possibly conceptualise of God, as He is, but only as a “first principle”, a “creative force”, a blind “first mover”, rather than the Holy Trinity, a communion of divine persons, co-eternal, all one Living Flame of Love (St John of the Cross). 

    At first, God’s revelation to us, as the eternal, loving, and infinite Creator of all things seen and unseen (Nicene Creed), seems to complicate rather than to elucidate the ontological question, which is always a set of questions: why is there something rather than nothing, what is being, what is “nothingness” – if anything at all? where does existence come from? Revelation tells us that God is (Exo 3:14). He possesses His own being, He is His own being, and all that He has created (Gen 1, 2) has its being rooted in His own (St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas).  

    However, the Church teaches us that God is totally and infinitely other than His creation: He is not His creation, even if He is closer to His creation than any of His creatures can ever be. This appears to create a paradox: if God is, then there is nothing outside or besides, underneath, or above God. There is no “nothing” from which God created everything, as we read in the Catechism. And this is true, there is no “nothing”, at least not as the word itself proposes to our intellect the meaning by which we tend to conceive of “nothing” as an ontological state, as a something with a being of “nothing”, consisting of “nothingness”.  

    This confusion stems from a lack of understanding of the nature and function of language – topics that are too difficult to tackle in a short article, such as this one. What is sufficient to stress here is this: the words of man’s language are confined, not determined, by virtue of being symbols rooted in the inner personhood of a created being. The only reason man is capable of language, and animals, plants, rocks, and other created beings are not, is because he alone is made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27). However, man’s personhood – and all that it is capable of expressing – is created and confined to this status. To be created means to receive one’s being. God possess His own being, but man does not: the Creator gives being to creatures, and creatures receive their being from the Creator. 

    The language of man, as defined by words – written or spoken, operates within creation, because it stems from the heart of a created being. This is also why we can never say anything accurately or totally of God, because He is not one of us, ontologically speaking, but He is the eternal, divine, and infinite Other Person. Everything that is created has being. “Nothing”, used in an ontological context, points directly to the absence of this being, as it points indirectly to its presence: “nothingness” can only be conceptualised by virtue of the fact that something has being.  

    However, as we stated above, language is confined to creation. As such, when we speak of “nothingness” as an ontological concept we can only do so in relation to creation, and we can mean two things: a) that something or someone has not been yet created by God and thus it or they have no being, or b) that something that or someone who has being must have a source for its or their existence, for it or they cannot exist by its or their own accord: epistemological objects (one’s accord to be) are secondary to ontological objects (the fact that one is or is not) in their being because knowledge requires the existence of the knower as well as of that which / who is known.  

    To bring it all together then, as I understand, the Church’s teaching on creation as expressed in CCC 296 is this: creation out of nothing, this process, consist of the very essence of any created being, an essence which differs in kind but not in nature (man is not a monkey, even if they are both created), and this essence cannot be understood in itself by a creature, unless God reveals this mystery Himself, for the creature is already contained in the process of being created out of nothing and it cannot get out of this, as it were outside creation, were only God is. 

    The words “out of nothing” denote precisely this complete “otherness” of God’s ontological dimension, a personhood that is infinite (as opposed to man’s finite personhood). God created out of nothing means, therefore, that He created something (which did not exist from all eternity) totally other to Himself to enjoy eternity with Himself who is love (1 John 4:8). 

    Indeed, we also know that God made everything out of His love (CCC 1604). As such, we can more fully – but not totally, as we have already stated – understand this truth, that God created everything out of nothing, if we equate it with this statement: God created out of His love. We can see here that the mystery of God’s love, revealed fully in Christ Jesus, but which is never exhaustible, is reflected in the manner of creation: out of nothing therefore means something which had no prior being now has being given in love – and this is the created being for the creature. 

    We cannot peer into the bottom of this process, which is the essence of being, for this knowledge belongs to God. But we can see that there is no conflict between faith and reason, that one helps the other, in exploring the infinite depths of the mystery of God’s love which is, in the end, the source of all creation. 

    Image credit: Giovanni di Paolo, The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from Paradise, 1445

  • “Light from light” 

    by

    There are certain images in holy Scriptures, in the teachings of the Church, and in the writings of the Saints, in essence there are images consisting of words found in the Catholic Faith, of a beauty that is breathtaking and which, this beauty that irradiates like a splendid, tranquil, and warm light over the whole universe, and which cannot be described, explained or wholly articulated in words for our language, vanishes in the glory of faith that only an intuition peculiar to the human heart can perceive – gently, as the embrace of a beloved friend on a cool Summer dusk, a twilight that is at once a dawn, an end that is also a beginning, a passing moment that, somehow, reminds one of the everlasting now. 

    With this intuition we know that these images, because of their object, are not ephemeral like the aesthetic ghosts that dance in the ballrooms of our minds, decorated with our thoughts and longings, a statue here dedicated to a forgotten love, a tree there confused for a god, all a pool whose clear reflection somehow distorts in part what we see and what we recall. No, the images of our Faith are not like so. For unlike the inner tapestry of dull thought and colourful imagination, of time lost and time hoped for, unlike the translucent form of our own collection of ideas, stored on pedestals like ancient busts, some ivory clean, others dirty rocks, these images of faith are given to us, from outside ourselves, as gifts to aid us in our primordial and eternal longing for Love Eternal. 

    Turning our heart’s gaze to the eyes of He who appears to us from afar and in whose eyes we read the unchanging words – “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer 31:3), let us awe at the majesty and glory, the just beauty – always ancient and always new (St Augustine) – of our dear and good God.  

    Christ and His angels 

    “Christ is the centre of the angelic world” (CCC 331). The immense beauty and the sweet depth of the truth contained by this image, as a child is held in a cradle, point to the incomprehensible dimensions of what St Paul called “the depths of the richness of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom 11:33). It is indeed in such revealed truths, in such corners of this unfathomable reality that is rooted in God, that the full force of beauty is on display: beauty is an expression of the good (St John Paul II), otherwise beauty is not beautiful but a demoralising lie. 

    Our Lord is the centre of the angelic world, that most mysterious and awesome world of spirits, with an intellect far surpassing the greatest genius of mankind (St Therese of Lisieux), perhaps greater and clearer than all that can be known about the visible universe. It is only natural that such intellectually powerful beings of spirit be around the Heart of Jesus where all the treasures of wisdom are hidden (Litany of the Sacred Heart). 

    “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him” (Matt 25:31), to judge the living and the dead (Apostles Creed) with righteousness and equity (cf Ps 98:9). However, until then, God – through Jesus Christ – made and appointed for each one of us a Guardian Angel, to look after us and guide us in the path of the Lord: “He will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways” (Ps 91:11). How beautiful our Guardian Angels must be! And how full of courage and power they must be to shield us with their wings from the legions of evil, from the swarms of temptation and intrusive thoughts!  

    The Eternal Eyes 

    All that we do, we do under the gaze of God, of those “Eternal Eyes” (St Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life). Those eyes of divine love which looked at St Peter from the door of pain and death (cf Luke 22:61), “those eyes desired which are sketched in my heart” (St John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle). 

    The words of the Psalmist are true indeed: “My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Ps 27:8). How could we seek the face of God if God did not have one? “God is spirit” and “no one has seen God” (John 4:24, John 1:18), and yet Jesus has said: “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).  

    Is it not the face of the Word made flesh (cf John 1:14) that St Veronica wiped, as we commemorate in the sixth Station of the Cross? Are not the eternal eyes of the One who is “true God and true man” (Nicene Creed) who beheld from the Cross His Mother and His beloved Apostle when He said: “Woman behold thy son” and who is now “at the right hand of God the Father” (Nicene Creed)? 

    And indeed, are not those the eyes behind the face of every person we meet in whose glance we catch that glimpse of a divine presence as our hearts whisper: “Lord…” 

    Living Flame of Love 

    Without doubt, one of the most beautiful images we have to remind us of who God is, to embody in our minds the shape of the Holy Spirit who descended upon the Apostles as tongues of fire, right before the virgin gaze of Mary (cf Acts 2:3), comes from the poetry of St John of the Cross, especially from the poem entitled “The Living Flame of Love”.  

    There is nothing I can say about this poem that is better than the commentary of St John himself, so I shall simply cite the poem here. 

    “Oh, living flame of love  
    That tenderly woundest my soul in its deepest centre,  
    Since thou art no longer oppressive, perfect me now if it be thy will,  
    Break the web of this sweet encounter. 

    Oh, sweet burn! Oh, delectable wound!  
    Oh, soft hand! Oh, delicate touch  
    That savours of eternal life and pays every debt!  
    In slaying, thou hast changed death into life. 

    O lamps of fire! in whose splendours  
    The deep caverns of feeling,  
    Once obscure and blind,  
    Now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,  
    Both warmth and light to their Beloved. 

    How gently and lovingly you wake in my heart,  
    Where in secret you dwell alone;  
    And in your sweet breathing,  
    Filled with good and glory,  
    How tenderly You swell my heart with love.” 

    There are many such images of faith throughout holy Scriptures, the prayers of the Church, and the writings of the Saints that remind us of who God is and what He has done for us. As St Ignatius of Loyola shows in his “Spiritual Exercises”, meditating upon images of faith can help us get closer to God. However, it is always important to not be attached to any of these images, for these are mere concepts of He who is (cf Exo 3:14), the living God (cf Jer 10:10), who is beyond all objects – material and immaterial – and beyond all understanding. Only love can make us approach Him, for love makes us akin to Him (cf 1 John 4:1-21). 

    Image credit: Luc-Olivier Merson, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1880