My wife and I, as I have stated
previously, enjoy watching the Taiwanese TV shows on Netflix because they have
more morality in them than Hollywood movies or American TV shows. We are currently watching “Inborn Pair;” and,
in it, they have the line—for the fifteenth rule of the Daughter-in-Law’s
Guidebook: “Never stop loving, and the loving will never stop.” This caused me to think of God’s love for us. We do not see ourselves as rebellious;
nevertheless, that does not negate the fact that we are extremely rebellious;
and they saying applies to us directly: This
is indeed a stiff-necked people.[1] I think we all know pretty
well how God wants us to live, but we live as we desire to live, our will be
done. We live by what pleases me, what makes me happy.
I know there are some who disagree
with me when I use all-inclusive words such as “we.” They say, “Well, that does not include me,”
or “It does not include all.” We are one
type of being: human. We are also one
Body because of Baptism. Do we commit sin? Yes.
Then this applies to all. Everything
we see someone doing, whether good or evil, is also in each of us. It may be dormant, but it’s there. Often, it is whether we have it under
control, cooperating with the grace God has given us.
Everything God tells us to do and
not do is love, goodness, justice, and happiness. We are rebellious and stiff-necked because we
want to do what pleases us. It is just
as it was with a friend of mine. He was
an Anglican, but believed the Catholic Church was THE Church. Therefore, I asked him why didn’t he become
Catholic. His response was, “I don’t
want anyone telling me what to do.” Of
course, there are people who are obedient to the Church. Would this not also apply to them? This does apply to us also because: We are
obedient because God is changing us; we are cooperating with his grace. We are still rebellious and stiff-necked
because concupiscence still lies within us to some degree. Otherwise, we would not have to go to
Confession, and the Church states that everyone has to go to Confession once a
year. Of course, God tells us, “If we say, “We are without sin,” we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”[2]
The evidence to prove how
hard-hearted we are, somewhere there will be someone who brings up our Lord and
Mary, the Blessed Virgin. Does not the
Church state that Mary was without sin?
Absolutely. The Church teaches
she was immaculate from birth. Mary, I
believe, would be first in line for Confession because she knew this was
because of the grace of God, not of herself.
“My soul proclaims the greatness
of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my
savior (emphasis added). For he has looked upon his handmaid’s
lowliness…”[3] Jesus took our sins upon himself in the
Incarnation. In my opinion,
concupiscence was in him also because, otherwise, he would not have been
human. This applies to Mary also. Although he is God the Son, in his humanity
he cooperated with the grace of the Father, overcoming concupiscence.
Jesus did not commit sin in thought,
word, or deed; nevertheless, he would also be first in line for Confession
because he knew that he did not sin by virtue of his Divinity, his cooperation
with that Divinity: not what I will but
what you will.[4] One reason he underwent baptism was because
he was a human being, sinful flesh—although he committed no sin.
Moses told the Israelites: For I already know how rebellious and
stiff-necked you will be. Why, even now, while I am alive among you, you have
been rebels against the Lord! How much more, then, after I am dead![5] Consider,
Israel was worshipping God, following Moses; nevertheless, Moses had that to
say of them. Moses was a type of the One
to come after him; therefore, we see Jesus saying this of us.
In another place, we find: Moses at once knelt and bowed down to the
ground. Then he said, “If I find favor with you, Lord, please, Lord, come along
in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness
and sins, and claim us as your own.”[6] How many times do we find
Jesus praying? Was he praying for
himself or for humanity? For
humanity.
“Never stop loving, and the loving
will never stop.” God never stops loving
us; and, because he never stops loving us, the loving will never stop.” Regardless of how we react to his love, he
never stops loving. This is evidenced by
the fact that, every time we reject life by sinning, we do not immediately
die. Every time we sin, we are rejecting
life, but we continue to live.
In the show, “Inborn Pair,” the
mother-in-law is very prideful, not liking the daughter-in-law. The daughter-in-law continues to love
her. “Never stop loving, and the loving
will never stop.” Love will soften many
hard hearts. In the end, the mother-in-law
returns that love. In another show,
“Miss Rose,” when asked why she told the man she loved to marry another, she
replied—paraphrasing: “When you love someone, you do what is best for them and
their happiness.” When I was courting my
wife: If I was competing with someone for her hand in marriage, I don’t think I
could have willingly come to that conclusion.
It would have to be God working in me.
I would have been selfish and fought for her love, even if the other
individual was a better person and more prosperous.
Because of God’s love and his grace,
somewhere that love is being reciprocated, which is being proved by love of
neighbor. There is absolutely no way to
love God and hate neighbor. God creates
out of love. Human beings were created
by the love of God. How can we hate
God’s works and love him? If we love
God, we also love what and whom he loves.
As stated previously, even when we don’t love God, he continues to love
us, continues to persuade us to return to him.
As I had stated in another
meditation, love must flow outwards because self-love will drown us, smother
us. It is as if we are digging a deep
hole and the dirt collapses upon us. It
has nowhere else to go. God created each
of us for a purpose, and that purpose is always for good, not evil. Self-love hardens.
Oh,
that today you would hear his voice: Do not harden your hearts...[7] St. Augustine reminds us: “Therefore, ‘Today
if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.’ O my people, the people of God! God addresses His people.”[8] God is not speaking to non-believers here; he
is speaking to the baptized, his people.
We harden our hearts when we do our will, not his.
…as
at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the desert. There your ancestors tested me; they tried me
though they had seen my works. Forty
years I loathed that generation; I said: “This people’s heart goes astray; they
do not know my ways.”[9] Augustine explains: “Let such be no more
your fathers: imitate them not. They
were your fathers; but, if you do not imitate them, they shall not be your
fathers.”[10] In Baptism, we are born of God. Let us now imitate our Father. We are prone, as the Israelites were, to
allow our hearts to go astray. We
imitate them when we desire the things that humanity at large desires. That love does not keep loving. Love can only keep loving when it is focused
outward, and then it is powerful.
Johnny Cash had a song, A Thing
Called Love, which I think is a quite fitting conclusion:
Six foot six he stood on the ground,
He weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds,
But I saw that giant of a man brought down to his knees by love.
He was the kind of a man that would gamble on luck,
Look you in the eye and never back up,
But I saw him crying like a little whipped pup because of love.
You can't see it with your eyes,
Hold it in your hand.
But like the wind, it covers our land,
Strong enough to move the heart of any man,
This thing called love.
It can lift you up,
Never let you down,
Take your world and turn it all around,
Ever since time, nothing's ever been found,
That's stronger than love.
Most men are like me, they struggle in doubt,
They trouble their minds day in and day out,
Too busy with living to worry about a little word like love.
But when I see a mother's tenderness,
As she holds her young close to her breast,
Then I thank God that the world's been blessed with a thing called love.
You can't see it with your eyes,
Hold it in your hand.
But like the wind, it covers our land,
Strong enough to move the heart of any man,
This thing called love.
It can lift you up,
Never let you down,
Take your world and turn it all around,
Ever since time, nothing's ever been found,
That's stronger than love.
Ever since time, nothing's ever been found,
That's stronger than love.
He weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds,
But I saw that giant of a man brought down to his knees by love.
He was the kind of a man that would gamble on luck,
Look you in the eye and never back up,
But I saw him crying like a little whipped pup because of love.
You can't see it with your eyes,
Hold it in your hand.
But like the wind, it covers our land,
Strong enough to move the heart of any man,
This thing called love.
It can lift you up,
Never let you down,
Take your world and turn it all around,
Ever since time, nothing's ever been found,
That's stronger than love.
Most men are like me, they struggle in doubt,
They trouble their minds day in and day out,
Too busy with living to worry about a little word like love.
But when I see a mother's tenderness,
As she holds her young close to her breast,
Then I thank God that the world's been blessed with a thing called love.
You can't see it with your eyes,
Hold it in your hand.
But like the wind, it covers our land,
Strong enough to move the heart of any man,
This thing called love.
It can lift you up,
Never let you down,
Take your world and turn it all around,
Ever since time, nothing's ever been found,
That's stronger than love.
Ever since time, nothing's ever been found,
That's stronger than love.
Jesus was a giant of a man because
he never sinned. Everything he did was
out of love for the Father and for his neighbor. Love of Father and neighbor brought him all
the way down to becoming man, clothing himself with our sinful flesh. He wept for us; he died for us. He never stopped loving; therefore, love
never stopped. We have the power to “deflect”
that love, desiring not to be the recipient of it because of the pain and
rejection that comes with it, but we cannot stop it. A woman can reject a man’s love or a man, a
woman’s. However, they cannot stop that
individual from loving them. In the same
way we can reject God’s love, but we cannot stop him from loving us. Because of sin, we have difficulty many times
in “seeing” that love, and therefor we reject it, not perceiving that it
exists. We must “train” ourselves to “see”
it in everything, especially in rejections, pain, suffering, and death. God never stops loving; therefore, love never
stops. We must “learn” to do likewise. We “learn” by exercising love. Never stop loving, and love will never stop.
[1] New American Bible,
Revised Edition., (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, 2011), Ex 34:9.
[2] Ibid.,
1 Jn 1:8.
[3] Ibid.,
Lk 1:46–48.
[4] Ibid.,
Mk 14:36.
[5] Ibid.,
Dt 31:27.
[6] Ibid.,
Ex 34:8–9.
[7] Ibid.,
Ps 95:7–8.
[8]
Augustine of Hippo, Saint Augustin:
Expositions on the Book of Psalms, 1888, 8, 469.
[9] New American Bible,
Revised Edition., (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, 2011), Ps 95:8–10.
[10]
Augustine of Hippo, Saint Augustin:
Expositions on the Book of Psalms, 1888, 8, 469.
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