LOVE was the whole point of everything right from the moment of creation…
I have been praying very much over the last couple of days for a mother who is very ill and who is a friend of a friend of mine. This woman is not religious, and yet I pray for her very very much. Her illness is an inconvenience to her life, to her work as a teacher and a mother and it is a terrible, terrible reminder of her mortality – and ours.
What could my prayers possibly do to help this woman who is a stranger – my neighbour? After all, she does not know my name. Perhaps she does not even pray. What use are my prayers to her?
Yet, there is great power in this privilege to pray for her and to ask others to join me. Let us all join together to pray for this woman that God may heal her if it be His Holy will.
Saint Ignatius of Antioch said, “for when you assemble together in one place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith.”
God does much good through the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, which are developed through our prayers for strangers such as these – our neighbours!
For through our prayers we have FAITH in God’s ability to do GOOD, we have HOPE in God’s capacity as our SAVIOUR and we show LOVE through our efforts for our neighbour.
And we have such a very short time on this Earth to learn about love.
That is why we were made. From His infinite goodness, God made human life. Not because He needed us or was incomplete without us, but because He wished to SHARE Himself and His essence with us for LOVE OF US.
We were not made to suffer as this friend of my friend suffers. We were not made to DIE. We were made to LIVE.
But through sin – through ORIGINAL SIN – we assumed death like a mantle and wear it as a cloak throughout our Earthly lives.
And it is this death through and killed love in us. The temptation of Eve was to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil so that she could assume the knowledge of God. It was a selfish choice.
It is selfishness that kills love.
For sin is – in its essence – a selfish disregard for all the love offered to us by Our Beloved Heavenly Father. Sin is the selfish disregard of that infinite LOVE.
Human beings are made in the IMAGE OF GOD.
That means something.
That means that we were made to BE like God. To LOVE like God. To WORK like God.
Sadly… Sin ruined all of that.
It is through sin that we humans forget in whose image we are created.
The English clergyman, Adam Henry, who died in the early 18th century explained… “Eve was not taken out of Adam's head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.”
It is no coincidence that after Adam and Eve sinned the Original Sin of disobedience to God’s Will the first words of Adam to God articulated his fear and embarrassment… “I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:10).
Why did Adam and Eve suddenly become afraid of their nudity after Original Sin and not before?
Because sin corrupted love. The union between man and woman was designed perfectly in the Image of God – like the relationship between the Blessed Persons of the Holy Trinity – became through sin, corrupted by lust exploitation and selfishness.
And so God had to give us a way to learn love in this life if we were ever to merit any chance to experience it in all its perfection in the next one.
And He did this by allowing us to suffer. And He showed us the perfect suffering, through the Second Person of the Trinity – God the Son – who suffered and died for LOVE of us.
And He did this because human life is precious – infinitely so, because God’s love for humanity is infinite.
In the words of Saint Pope John Paul II, “Human life is precious, because it is the gift of a God whose love is infinite, and when God gives life it is FOREVER.”
Thank God for the Saints, who remind us of our task. We must pray – with Faith to restore Hope for Love.
Because LOVE was the whole point of everything right from the moment of creation…
God is Love! And that explains everything.
For prayers from my dear friend’s sick friend, everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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