An Exposition of Love- Part I

That all people are drawn to God is evident in the saying: God is Love. In one way or another, at some time or another, each one of us evidences that they love Love itself. We are the product of Love itself, by our love of things, namely beauty. We are in love with beauty, and at the same time we are attracted to love because of its own beauty. It’s almost become a cliché to say that Love is an action. But love really is a work, the highest expression of human dignity and to negate it is to extinguish a very real part of our humanity in who we are essentially.

            One of the greatest temptations in modern society is the temptation to negate work while obtaining its ends. It’s a paradoxical problem, for love in particular, because while it is yet so concomitant to the formal and essential existence of mankind and the individual person we’ve deceived ourselves into thinking that the act of love can be left aside while getting at things such as sexuality which in truth is a beautiful expression of love. In reality, love, while being a labor in itself to various goods and ends, is not merely sought for these ends but for the sake of itself. And here is the proof of it: What is family without love? What is friendship with out love? What is sex without love? What is work without love? What is patriotism, or religion, or anything besides without love? We all know the very simple answer, which is that it is all vain drudgery. There is no enlightening that takes place in any of these apart from love. They become purposeless and base, essentially aimless, when existing only for the sake of themselves. Love alone is that which in existing for itself, exists for all things.

            We cannot have things like family, friendship, sex, or vocation, as we really desire them, apart from love. Love itself is essential to the fabric of what we desire as human creatures. Therefore, apart from love, we cannot hope to obtain those things which make us human. It’s really quite profound that we cannot realize our humanity without the presence of love in society and in our own individuality. That’s why we call that which lacks love, inhumane, in the schema of human relations. Just as profound, while realizing our own humanity in love, our individualism and our communal identity bleed into one in the context of love. We are willing to do more than guard the integrity of our individual identity, sacrificing ourselves for that which would sacrifice itself for us, even aside from the knowledge that it is the case. In other words, we are loving before it is requited, when loving purely. This is where the greatest magnanimity of the human spirit is seen: unconditional and selfless love.

            Much of man’s pain arises from the fact that he is awash with internal and communal paradoxes. It’s often said that people do the most horrible and senseless acts because they are afraid. That can be a difficult concept to grasp, and at first may not ring completely true. However, upon examination, we can unravel a perhaps a more articulate exposition of this truth, which is that man is in a state of seemingly hopeless despair. His despair comes from his inability to reconcile these paradoxes with each other and with what he knows and believes to be right and true. His despair comes from his quest to find himself, as he really is and to provide for that real man in accordance with his real needs. As stated early, man cannot realize himself as he truly is apart from love as it truly is.

            Imagine the great psychosis we are all under to some degree. How often does time reveal our needs to only have been wants? How many things have we and do we view as essential that later prove only to be ancillary? In the course of life, how often do we cast ourselves upon fashion hoping to find ourselves therein, only to realize as we get older how shallow of a substitute those fashions were to something more real? This species of bewilderment and beguilement which man labors under also stems to greater things, such as ideology, politics, and economical systems. In a great irony, we begin to see clearly how hardly man sees at all. We are suddenly inclined to say with Socrates,” I am only [truly] aware of the fact of my own ignorance.”

            There is one paradox in which man can hope to be lost in addition to the knowledge of his own ignorance, however, and that is his ability to while receiving divine love and attempting to share it in its fullness as he receives it, to give something genuinely to activate that participation; that ‘something’ is his very self. Participation with this divine love must be more than active, just as it must be more than an emotion. It must be active as an extension of something real within him. That is to say, love acted out in the form of charity and compassion, must be love from man’s inner intention finding extension in the world.

            Herein, we see that practiced love is only half the matter. No amount of self giving or communal giving for the temporal and psychological needs of our neighbor could ever replace the true intention of the inner man. This is where love becomes hard. Man co-suffers with his neighbor when he truly loves, and he obtains this schematic from God who is Love. For this reason, it could not have been any other way, except that God override his justice with his mercy, to fulfill love, to co-suffer with his beloved, mankind. So, just as he as Love itself was called to co-suffering with his beloved, we are required by love to co-suffer. This engages our whole being, which is why Christ commands us,” You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Naturally, we put at the disposal of our own pursuit of happiness all of our faculties. If we are to belong to God, we admit that we belong to love, and in belonging to love it is incumbent upon us to obey this command of co-suffering.

            It is an arduous path to choose to love, over and over, because in light of our concern for self, which is ever present, it does not appear to us initially as the choice to love. On the contrary! This choice appears to us as the choice to suffer, and in such a fashion that it is to someone else’ good, or perhaps more pertinently that we do not suffer to our good. Similarly, we see ourselves suffering if we are selfish. This, however, is at least to what our own psychosis esteems as our pleasure and our good. Therefore, essentially the decision to act becomes the decision to suffer for someone else’ good or our own.

            Much of mans inner dialogue centers around this very choice of preferment. In reality the choice is to suffer for the real good of others or the imagined good of ourselves. The only real good we can hope to achieve for ourselves comes from suffering for others. It’s a great mystery, but a very present and clear one. It’s a part of the paradox man may rightly hope to lose himself in. The conversation between mans passions and his conscience is evidence of his great nobility and dignity, and wherever his conscience is rightly informed and wins out he is noble and dignified. However, wherever his conscience surrenders to his passions he experiences degradation, while inflicting degradation upon his community as well, because at least in himself he is a part thereof.

            In many ways, modern society has compounded mans proclivity to find the easiest route to pleasure and success. His genius, intellect and cleverness are part of his identity, and when in conjunction with his conscience and selfless love, do manifest the most noble of paradigms. But when out of the context of morality and conscience his genius loses its inherent nobility. It is important to note that the nobility of mans genius is inherent to its goodness, and that the divine meaning of his genius is more important than the genius itself. We see that love is the source of life, and not only, but good and abundant life. The nobility of genius, which it gets in the context of conscience and morality, subordinates it to love. Apart from love, the ends of genius become the bait of proverbial rat traps.

            Without love, genius is dehumanized. If we look back to a time when the field of psychology had no substantive ethics, we see human genius misguided. In the attempt to understand himself and to gain knowledge that would be advantageous for mankind, we see psychologists engaging with some frequency and notoriety in positively atrocious experiments which degraded human beings into mere objects of experimentation. We see these victims of inhumane genius offered up, as it were, to so-called progress. We see the same sort of depraved medical experimentation, even more dramatically and horrifically, carried out by Nazi doctors in concentrations camps. In the attempt to obtain scientific and medical progress, these intellectuals who represent the apex of society made shipwreck of conscience in the name of society’s welfare.

            We do the same thing as individuals when we choose to degrade other human being for our own pleasure, profit, and welfare. For instance, abortion, pornography, child labor, and unjust wages to name a few prime examples. The love which we owe our fellow man, the love which is incumbent upon us to give to our neighbor, our family, is negated in these. Humans are very adept at identifying goods, and I use that term not only in a tangible sense, but also psychosocially and metaphysically. These goods drive us, as an incentive to participate in the excellence of love. One of the most exemplary models of love, sex itself, is one such good. In the modern time, when man has been lead to believe that through various means he may obtain the ends of work, the goods, without work he is particularly susceptible in his sexuality. He is prone to believe that apart from the work of love, sex can be his. It’s the cheese on the rat trap, a trap that can only contribute to the destruction of who he really is, because who he really is can only be realized through the work of love.

            Hitherto, we seem reaffirmed in the notion that the arduous path of love in which man realizes his true self is a choice. Not only, but that it is the highest expression of his dignity and that all things pertaining to him are concomitant to it. The only way to love, then, is in the context of this notion that all things are subordinate to love, making all life subordinate to love. How sad then that love has been turned into a game, that people, the young especially, are encouraged to treat it like a game. Even worse that they are given license by modern society to love with gravity as many as they see fit, capitulating the most sacred part of themselves in dating. Herein, whether or not sex is present, a confusion and obfuscation of love, of an immense order, is fomented. All this under the pretense that some how they will learn how to love, or the true meaning of love, through exercising their sexuality in perennial relationships with members of the sex to which they are attracted.      

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. ~Aristotle~

Deliver Me, O Jesus "Blessed Mother Teresa"

Deliver me, O Jesus,
From the desire of being loved,
From the desire of being extolled,
From the desire to being honored,
From the desire of being praised,
From the desire of being preferred,
From the desire of being consulted,
From the desire of being approved,
From the desire of being popular,
From the fear of being humiliated,
From the fear of being despised,
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
From the fear of being calumniated,
From the fear of being forgotten,
From the fear of being wronged,
From the fear of being ridiculed,
From the fear of being suspected.
Amen.
~ Blessed Teresa of Calcutta~

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~

My Fear

One's path to God is through the sacraments in which one is engaged. I am a Catholic, a husband, a father, a son, a brother, and a friend. My path to God is through these sacraments. My greatest fear is failing to observe them, to have something to give and not give it, to have something I must say and not say it, to have something to do and not do it, to have something to love and not love it. Where will I be if I betray these?

It is mine to suffer if I do not pray, if I do not confess, if I do not communicate. It is mine to be crushed if I do not teach my children what is right and teach them to reason, to be chaste, and to love. I am to be tormented with every vanity and every passion if I do not love my wife. Dishonor is mine if I dishonor my parents. It is mine to be alone if I do not do every good to my friends.

Yet, I know that the world hates the righteous. Never yet has there been a person who loved righteousness that the world did not hate. I know that if I pray, if I confess, and if I communicate I will suffer. I know that I will be crushed if I teach my children to be good and do good, to love God and His holy Church. I know that if I cleave to and love my wife I will be tormented with vanity and every passion. I know that if I honor my parents, the world will wag its ugly head at me. And if I am the truest of friends, if I behave as a true friend does... I will be very alone.

To live out one's sacraments is a life of courage. "O, Lord! How heavy Thy honor is to bear!" To live a sacramental life with fidelity, that is the long, hard and narrow path between two mountains. A hard place where your enemies crash down upon you, and the rocks roll down and crush you. It's to choose to do what is right and abstain from evil everyday of your life, knowing that concupiscence never abates; to have to make the same decision 1,000 times everyday. There is no hope of resisting so long that one day all temptation to sin ceases. There is only the hope that God strengthens, that resolve may harden and chastity endure. A vain hope to lessen the ferocity of evil; we can only put on the mail of piety from lip to ankle, and there upon place the full plate of charity and obedience; on our head, the sallet of wisdom, and a shield and sword in hand.  

O, that tomorrow were the day! That some agent of evil would martyr me so that I could in one hour secure the crown of life! Such an end I do not fear. That some deadly disease sent from Satan for hatred of me would shortly deprive me of life! Then, I could so easily count up my offerings to Him, with sturdy hope of rest in sight. Then, I would have a deadly sign of my friendship with Him, a clay seal on the contract of my salvation. Such a death I cannot fear. Yet to wake up everyday and live, with no respite and no end of toil, this is menacing.

To not be a great Christian, that is my fear. To have never inspired anyone, that is my fear! While I am alive, let me speak for those who do not know how to say what they believe. Let me get beyond being a gadfly, only irritating the wicked and the reprobates. Let me reason for those who cannot reason! Let me defend the weak and succor the poor by the work of my hands! Let me pray for those who have no one to pray for them! Let me be a hammer against heresy, and a doctor to those who have fallen. For those who have not known true friendship, let me be a friend. Let me be the ram who protects the sheep where the shepherd is not near. Let me crack the teeth and the ribs of the wolves who have yearlings in their mouths.

I am afraid of dying and having been less than this, to come into His courts with only self inflicted injuries of negligence and no battle wounds. How can I sit at His table in the presence of so many with not so much as a scar?! Eternal shame! I am afraid of dying and not having spoiled my enemy. To die not only in the dregs of mediocrity, but to have left my work undone, to have failed my sacraments, of this I am afraid. To fail in this single hard hour of combat and glory, and to have it slip through my fingers beyond all recovery, of this I am terrified.   

O Lord, deliver me from such an end! Grant me the strength to honor Your name! Some pray for a peaceful death, but I have no such prayer. I pray for the end that best glorifies You. I do not pray for a peaceful death, only, let me have a holy death reconciled to You, in Your friendship. Grant me, therefore, a happy death; and whether it is peaceful matters not to me. The peace of Your friendship and the peace of knowing that I have honored You is sufficient for me.Your holy will be done. Amen

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~

Mary Queen of Peace

There are some who doubt that the Blessed Virgin has been coronated as the Queen of Heaven, but I will give evidence that it is so. The sort of evidence I will give is that of faith, in the first place, because faith is that decision which follows from the assent to knowledge. I will give proof, in the second place, from logic; that is, I shall give logical proofs. I know that I will not be dismissed by you, even if now some of you say," The proof of word is not proof at all, nor is it even evidence." I know that you won't dismiss me, because to write off metaphysical evidences and proofs is to write off all of the classical philosophers. I don't think you are willing to do that on your own authority.

In the first place, we have a great clue that Mary is in heaven because of her fluency of language and culture. In each place, she appears in such a likeness that she can be received by the people, going so far as to take on the particular physical characteristics of the people. Certainly, one might point to this precisely as evidence against the claim that she is in Heaven, making these stories out to be nothing more than mere imagination or legend. Such a refutation is not without merit; after all, don't those who look at the sun in Africa see the same sun as those who are in Europe? Without a doubt the whole human race sees the same sun and has since the first of us walked the earth. Yet, I will point out that the sun looks different at dusk, as it does at dawn, just as it does when it shines through the fog, or at its zenith, but it is still the same sun. In different places in the sky it looks different, but is the same. Though sometimes white, it is also yellow, orange or red, large or small, fiercely hot or benign, yet it must be and is the same star.

It is of no real consequence, then, that Mary has several permutations if anyone should use this to disprove apparitions. In fact, it can only be said that it is proof that she is holy indeed and resides in Heaven as she demonstrates the same vicissitude of the sun as it goes from one end of the sky to the other. However, to compare Mary to the moon would be far more appropriate. In the end, however, she does possess both the vicissitude and verisimilitude of the sun and the moon, at once.

Someone might say,"Ah! But Christ is the Day Spring." Not so. This was said for your sake and not for His. For there is no variation in God, the source of light. Indeed, anything which is one is in fact 'one.' To say that there is variation in a thing which is one is incorrect, because it is one; and anything that is what it cannot be is something else. Similarly, anything which is not what it must be is not at all. God is One, being homoousios, that is to say 'consubstantial.' God is One and the way He 'IS' does not change or diminish, nor does it increase so as to make anything previous inferior, because He is above time, place and dimension. He is not made up of a sum of parts like created things, but he is One. He is not constrained by anything conceived by the human mind whether it be corporeal or incorporeal, or any of the things concomitant to those. If you have trouble receiving this, think upon and learn whatever you can by meditating upon what God is not and begin with the fact that He is not three gods and does not change. It only suffices to say that He is One.

Therefore, this is another proof for Mary being holy indeed in apparitions, for she does not appear everywhere unaltered, in such species of constancy which is God's alone. Instead, she makes herself more like sister moon who varies at every showing, always reflecting the glory of 'The Greater Celestial Light.' Further, she has no light of her own, just as the moon has no light of it's own, but she receives all of her glory and power from the Holy Trinity, just as the Moon receives its light from the sun. In the same way as the moon glorifies the sun, Mary glorifies the Holy Trinity. Just as the sun and the moon and the stars are in the same abode, so are God, Mary, and the angels.

Aside from these evidences, as stated before, she is fluent in all languages. This is an act of loving condescension to the human race. Being that she is in Heaven she enjoys the perfect edification of the Holy Spirit. She no longer strives with the curse of language which was given to our fathers at the destruction of Babel, for there are no curses in Heaven. She being in Heaven, is in the presence of the Holy Trinity, having that Gift which Christ gave as an eternal gift, namely the Holy Spirit who is God. The same Holy Spirit who is the personal love that the Father has for the Son and the Son has for the Father, the same love that They each possess. Into this love Mary has been grafted, just as has been promised to all of the saints by Christ. This promise has been confirmed by the Holy Spirit through miracles, and attested to by the Father by the very giving of the Son and the Spirit as a sign and foreshadowing for us to hope upon as surety that the promises of Christ are just so for the Church.

Just as a person thinks to themselves as a form of incorporeal communication with self, it is the same with the Holy Trinity. But even more so, because our minds are limited to that which is perceived in creation and not even all of what is in creation, where as the Holy Trinity has no bounds, having been eternally uncreated. Mary is grafted into this boundless and limitless means of communication through the Holy Spirit, by the promises of Christ, at the will of the Father, making her prayers infinitely more efficacious than any prayer uttered in the tongues of men. We too possess this ability; unfortunately we have our corporeal minds to ever interfere with this greater gift. Yet not at all times, for this is the same gift of tongues spoke of in the book of Acts.

So, in the main, I say all this to point out that for Mary to speak in the tongues of men under any circumstance is to glorify the Son, because she would be doing as he once did. That is, she would be yoking herself with the curses of men to help men, curses which she is immune to having once died, yokes that she is not obliged to wear any longer. For her to speak to us is for her to literally suffer a curse for our sakes and her suffering, as the suffering of all the saints, is incorporated into the Head, Who is Christ Jesus, as she is the verisimilitude of the Church, the Body of Christ.

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~

Just Love

Love is. It does not ever try to prove itself, because it is. If you have true love, you will never be lonely; you will never lack genuine and unfeigned love. True love is selfless and strives to take care of everyone else first. In this way it propagates agape and provides for the one who loves and the beloved.

The person who loves in truth gets the benefit of their own love; their own love ministers to them. It is like a mother feeding her child, yet both of them become full. Again, it's like filling one sack from another, but both of them become full. Love is infinite, because God is Love. If our love is infinite and we give away an infinite amount of love, we still have an infinite amount of love. Do you see the mystery of love? Don't horde your love, or you will run out; that is the life of misery and despair.

Love is. Stop trying to prove your love. Don't choosing substitutes to love instead of the true path. Don't grooming your outward appearances so that people will like you or even worse lust after you. Instead, become concerned with doing good to the souls of others, ministering to people's hearts, wiping away their despair and people will love you. Propagate the love of God; propagate agape.

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~

Ecclesiasticus

Ecclesiasticus 18: 1-5

"He that liveth forever created all things together. God only shall be justified, and he remaineth an invincible king forever. Who is able to declare his works? For who shall search out his glorious acts? And who shall shew forth the power of his majesty? Or who shall be able to declare his mercy? Nothing may be taken away, nor added, neither is it possible to find out the glorious works of God..."

What a great passage! Let's dissect this shall we? Here we have a perfectly ordered idea before us. First we are presented by the Author with the infinite nature of the Creator and then the infinite nature of His works. Just as man is created and therefore creates out of that which is created, here we see that God Who is uncreated creates out of that which is uncreated. This is what Paul was talking about when we access the wonders and power of God in Christ through faith,"... calling those thing that were not as though they be."

To prove God's infinite nature, he does not address His person. Rather, he points out the nature of His works, at the same time showing man his finite nature. He does this so that man will first acknowledge his own nature so that he can begin to recognize God's nature. Being fully aware of his own limitations, man begins to be aware of God's boundless nature. For it is self-evident to all rational creatures that they're limited by their natures. Hence, by this scripture we are made to know that just as God's nature is not delimited, neither is His person and we are sure hereby that He is God.

And who is able to declare His works? Being thusly convinced of his own finite nature and God's infinite nature, man is made to know that he is a microcosm in a macrocosm. His understanding is limited by his own nature. If man knows anything beyond himself it is because the macrocosm of God condescends knowledge to him. And if a man knows anything about himself, then it is only because the Macrocosm caused him to be. In this way man is convinced that all things must come from God and that man can neither add to or take away from their sum. He may know with certainty that even the sum of created things is too excellent for him and learns true humility. Understanding the nobility he has over other creations, man begins to know his order in creation and begins to understand God's love for him.

Man is a microcosm of a macrocosm. God cannot but love man, because he is the image of Himself. And if man is disordered, God is motivated by primal love of Himself to restore the microcosm to homeostasis. The macrocosm will make the microcosm anew. Like from like, and we are convinced of the Incarnation, knowing that God had to become man to make us anew.

When the Blessed Trinity looked down on man's fallen state, the three Persons of the Holy Trinity each were moved to compassion. This is because the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. Together they love the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit loves Them; one God, pure, unadulterated love. In looking on man, each Person of the Holy Trinity saw the other two Persons explicit in man's nature. It was the love of God that caused the salvation of mankind primarily. Their love of each Other necessitated the Incarnation. That same divine love is why Christ endured all things.

The only way than man can show anything about God is by being a perfect microcosm, to do more than this not in man's power. But by being perfect, man becomes one with the Macrocosm. In becoming one with God he begins to participate in superhuman activities. His love becomes God's love, his thoughts become God's thoughts because he is taught of God, his motives become God's motives. Man when rightly ordered is absorbed into the macrocosm of God, maintaining his own unique person, yet uniting in fact with the Person of God. And we've seen these people, who God put in order and brought into His bosom and they are the saints.

But who shall search out his glorious acts? And who shall shew forth the power of his majesty? Or who shall be able to declare his mercy? None, except God, because it is written that we shall no longer say to one another,"Know God!" but rather that we shall be, each of us, taught of God ourselves. It is God who shows forth His glorious acts and the power of His majesty. It is God who declares His mercy. But having been united with God, man may begin to know and do those things that were too great for his nature. This is the work of Christ, and for this purpose it is written," You shall be as gods to the Egyptians." the Egyptians not only being themselves, but also representing a type of fallen man, a microcosm cut off from the Macrocosm.

We cannot comprehend the gift of God and that is why it is the most that we can do, by the very limit of our natures, to adore Him. That is why our adoration of Him is the meaning and purpose of life; it is incumbent upon us. It is the sacrifice due to Him; it was why we were made. Our adoration must be total and complete; we must love as He loves. This is why Christ said," I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you... This is how all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one." It must extend to all things: what we do, what we do not do, our intentions, our actions, our thoughts, all things. And this is why we are exhorted by the holy apostle St. Paul to,"...work out our salvation." and the holy apostle St. James says," Faith without works is dead." This is how we are to know full well that the "once saved, always saved" doctrine is a heresy and a lie designed to make us lazy and rob us of our blessings and salvation. Strive to workout your salvation.

Just as St. Paul says, you were foreknown, predestined to salvation by God. Therefore, seek to make your calling and election sure through good works, as though you could justify your own election. Be blessed, all of you and pray for me a sinner.

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~