Day 28. “I Know You and I Love You”
…God loves me because I am I – I am truly irreplaceable in the world. It seems clear to me that only through a conviction such as this can man achieve solid ground underfoot...
Joseph Pieper, Essay on Love
You are loved. You are loved for who you are – not for what you can do; not because you “measure up” in any way; not because you’ve got your act together. Even when you fail. Even when you are angry or anxious or ambivalent. Even when you’re fed up; at the end of your rope. You are loved. There is no way that you can lose this love. You can try to ignore it or choose to reject it, but you cannot get away from it. “Where can I hide from your spirit? ...If I fly with the wings of dawn and alight beyond the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast” (Ps 139:7,9,10). The Father’s love is unconditional. Therefore, he will always love you.
You are known. Past your masks, your posts and your posturing. Better than your friends and your followers. You are known. Deep beneath your failure, your sin, your shame and your weakness. In the remotest refuge of your secret self. You are known. And there you are loved - loved as an exceptional gift; a matchless treasure. There, in your heart of hearts, an immortal voice chants a canticle both mysterious and beautiful echoing across the ages, coming from the very depths: “I knew you before you ever were. I loved you before you drew your first breath. In my mind I conceived you and at the right time I brought you forth to see the light of day. My child, you are precious to me. You are my delight. There is none other like you, and I love you with my whole being!”
We have arrived at the Cornerstone of the Father’s love. Though it is the second we have considered, it is central to the structure. The Father’s love is the most stable, lasting foundation you will ever find.
But why must it be the Father’s love? Isn’t that patriarchal, sexist and narrow? Scripture, in fact, uses both maternal and paternal images for the love of God (Isaiah 49:15, 66:13; Psalm 131:23, to name a few). Furthermore, the Catechism states that, “In no way is God in man’s image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective ‘perfections’ of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and a husband” (CCC 370).
While it is true that God is not male, it is an article of our faith that God is Father. This we have from Jesus himself! God, the first person of the Blessed Trinity is Father. Not metaphorically, but by his own self-description. In other words, Father is the way he identifies himself. It is his relationship with the divine Son. In fact, every other father derives his identity and his authority from the one Father in heaven. “Call no one on earth your father,” councils Jesus, “you have but one Father in heaven” (Mt 23:9). He is, “the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. 3:14,15).
Some would still object. Given the realities of modern family life, ‘But… isn’t this insensitive?’ So many people have bad experiences with their fathers. Others have never known their fathers at all. Wouldn’t it be better to refer to God as something less triggering; as ‘Holy’ or ‘Mighty’ or simply as “Love?”
While this might ease our discomfort with such an apparently sex-specific term, it can become a kind of idolatry. Idolatry is the sin of fashioning God according to our own designs (Ex. 20:4; CCC 2083). In this case, it’s re-making God to make ourselves more comfortable. If God has revealed that He is Father, we must take Him at His word. Even human relationships call for such respect. If Tom introduces himself to you as “Tom,” you wouldn’t proceed to call him “Harry.” That’s not the way to start a relationship off on the right foot. If it’s bad form on the human level, it’s far worse in relationship with the Divine.
Can we admit that we need healing in this area? There is much resentment and resistance to fatherhood in our culture today. Not just in our own families. I speak of fatherhood here in the broadest sense especially in the areas of authority and governance. “Question Authority” is the mantra of modernity, not to mention a popular bumper sticker. The undercurrent of thought this reveals is one of deep distrust. Authority, it is believed, doesn’t care about you or me. It is only out to preserve its own power and to impose its will.
This can’t help but influence the ways we see God. We tend to emphasize the maternal qualities of God: mercy, compassion, patience, forgiveness. Meanwhile we resist the paternal character, and we squirm at the prospect of submitting to God’s law, God’s justice, God’s commandments. Yet God’s commands and God’s justice are signs of his love no less than God’s mercy is. As his children, we are under his care which means we are also under his discipline, “For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?...he does so for our benefit, in order that we may share his holiness” (Heb.12: 7,10). Remember that God’s justice not only punishes our disobedience (far less, it should be added, than we deserve) but also protects us from the oppression of the powerful. The next time someone steals from you and is brought to justice, be grateful for this dimension of both human and divine authority.
The deepest healing I have ever known came at the realization, in the very depths of my being, that God the Father loves me. Not just in a generic, all-encompassing way like sunlight that falls on everything without distinction. The Father’s love is personal. It comes from a person, and it is directed towards a person. Me. Exactly as I am. God the Father loves no one else in precisely the way that he loves me. And there is a way that I can love God in return that is utterly unique to me.
The same is available to you if you will receive it. Though you may struggle deeply with feelings of resentment or abandonment or indifference in your relationship with your earthly father, I invite you to allow God the Father’s love to be a means of healing to your pain and disappointment.
I also invite you to consider the good things you’ve received from your father or from father figures in your life. Let those qualities and experiences create a kind of image or icon leading you to contemplate the loving, powerful, gentle face of your heavenly Father.
God is the Father who was always and is always there. There when you need him; there when you call on him. No excuses. No exceptions. The words for this are many: steadfast love, my rock, unshakable, unchangeable, enduring, faithful. All this is to make clear that the Father is a worthy foundation for your life, for your wobbly, three-legged table.
Novena Prayer
Jesus says: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
Pier Giorgio responds: Our life, in order to be Christian, has to be a continual renunciation, a continual sacrifice. But this is not difficult, if one thinks what these few years passed in suffering are, compared with eternal happiness where joy will have no measure or end, and where we shall have unimaginable peace.
Let us pray: Blessed Pier Giorgio, teach me that I must be able to mourn if I will be able to rejoice. Show me how to face my sorrow, and not avoid it or pretend that it does not exist. Help me to enter into any present sorrow, so that my soul can empty itself and be filled with God’s peace.
Blessed Pier Giorgio, I ask for your intercession in obtaining from God, Who is our Consoler, all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare. I confidently turn to you for help in my present need: (in your own words, ask the Father to enable you to see yourself in his eyes, with his loving gaze).
A Book of Prayers in Honor of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, by Rev. Timothy E. Deeter
Make it My Own
Daily Discernment Workbook
EXAMINE MY HEART
1. The Dad I’ve Had
a. Do any of these describe my dad? Below are some general types of fathers. Do any sound familiar? I can choose more than one or add my own dad description…and it doesn’t have to start with “D”!
Devotional dad. My dad is/was a real spiritual leader for the family.
Dependable dad. My dad is/was always there for me.
Dominant dad. Dad rules the family with the dictum: “My way or the highway!”
Drone dad. Drone dad is a “never leaves you alone” dad. I always feel like I’m being checked up on.
Unpredictable dad. My dad is/was an emotional roller-coaster – devoted one minute, controlling the next, cold the next.
Dad m’buddy. My dad is/was more like one of my friends than like a father.
Dull dad. My dad is pretty uninteresting. He doesn’t get me and I don’t get him.
Dim and Distant dad. My dad has never really been a significant part of my life.
‘Do-er” dad. My dad isn’t super-affectionate. He shows love by doing things for me.
Donor dad. My mother used a sperm donor, so I don’t know anything about my biological father.
Dud dad. He eats, sleeps and watches T.V., period. He makes Homer Simpson look like Super-Dad.
Dude dad. My dad is totally image and style conscious. I wish I could relax and just be my sloppy self around him.
‘Don’t’ dad. My dad thinks fatherhood is about forbidding things. I can’t remember the last time I had fun around him.
Fun-and-Done dad. Dad is in and out of my life. When he shows up, it’s all fun and anything goes. When he’s gone, though, he’s so gone.
Other:
b. Drawing Conclusions. Looking at my experience of my earthly father, can I recognize ways this influences my picture of God? Do I see God as demanding because my dad is demanding? Do I see God as mighty because I feel like my dad can do anything? Do I see God as distant because my dad is never around? Write a few observations. Note that my image of God can also be a reaction against what I’ve experienced.
GOING DEEP
2. Considering My Authority Issues.
Do I have a hard time with authority? It could be related to my experience of fatherhood. If I don’t trust authority, or have a hard time accepting external rules and regulations, it may start with my home life, my relationship with my parents and my growing up years. On the other hand, if rules are a positive thing to me, it may also go back to Dad’s as well as Mom’s role in my life.
A. When I’m given a rule, I SO want to break it.
▢ This is me. ▢ Sometimes this is me. ▢ This isn’t really me.
My comments: How do I see my parents’ influence in this?
B. When I’m under somebody’s authority, I always feel like “I could do this better.”
▢ This is me. ▢ Sometimes this is me. ▢ This isn’t really me.
My comments: How do I see my parents’ influence in this?
C. When I’m in a leadership position and challenged with a tough problem I always think, “What would Dad do in this situation?”
▢ This is me. ▢ Sometimes this is me. ▢ This isn’t really me.
My comments: How do I see my parents’ influence in this?
D. I actually love rules. They give boundaries and order to my life. I’m always wondering “Isn’t there some rule for this?” That’s the way it was in my house growing up. Rules were not oppressive but sensible and doable.
▢ This is me. ▢ Sometimes this is me. ▢ This isn’t really me.
My comments: How do I see my parents’ influence in this?
A QUOTE TO NOTE
3. A Philosopher and a Theologian
Consider this from Joseph Pieper, a modern philosopher…
All Love Undeserved
At bottom all love is undeserved. We can neither earn it nor promote it; it is always pure gift….But there seems to be in man something like an aversion for receiving gifts. No one is wholly unfamiliar with the thought: “I don’t want anything for nothing!” And this emotion comes uncannily close to the other: I don’t want to be “loved,” and certainly not for no reason! …C.S. Lewis says that absolutely undeserved love is certainly what we need but not at all the kind of love we want. “We want to be loved for our cleverness, beauty, generosity, fairness, usefulness” (citing, ‘The Four Loves’) [1].
I relate to this quote in this way:
Or consider this from Hans Urs von Balthasaar, a theologian…
Allowing Oneself to Be Loved
To allow oneself truly to be loved is more difficult than for oneself to love, and more humility is required. First of all, one is an object and not an autonomously acting subject, and hence one must have the humility to receive instead of to give. Then, too, a total and quite complex purification of one's interior veracity is necessary. Considerable time is required between the discovery that one can oneself love and the discovery that one can truly be loved without one’s lover being blinded by some illusion. It is easy to find oneself love-worthy with arrogance; but this does not satisfy a person who is loved and does not want to hide any part of his truth from the person loving him. He will mostly turn his glance away from himself with shame in order not to discover what is good about himself and direct that glance toward the lover alone, in whose eyes - and nowhere else - he would like to glimpse the reflection of his own goodness: "If he finds it good to love me, there must be something to it... But that, thank God, does not concern me..." This shame contains an important truth; but it should not be based on the certainty of having a fuller knowledge than the other, of knowing with certainty, that is, that this other "sees too much in oneself" or that "he doesn't know all." Both things would be a distrust of his love, the suspicion that it is not absolute but conditioned and dependent on a certain number of qualities. Here the only help comes from a humble and loving trust in the rightness of every love, which defies all justification and which, even if it by chance does not "know everything," still is infinitely more knowing and clairvoyant than an egotistical self-hatred. In the end, all true love is not blind: it alone really sees, but, seeing, it overlooks and thus banishes guilt from the world. Therefore, let others love in you the good things God has given you and do not deprive love of its nourishment [2].
I relate to this quote in this way:
Before concluding, return to and reflect on the…
Litany of Freedom
Set me free, O Lord, in your royal freedom. Free me from false ideas of freedom.
Not freedom from rules do I seek O Lord,
but a freedom through obedience to your commands;
Not freedom from responsibility do I seek O Lord,
but a freedom through dependability in my commitments;
Not freedom from expectations do I seek O Lord,
but a freedom to maximize my possibilities;
What do I ask of you, My God?
I ask a freedom from ignorance,
and a freedom for knowledge of the truth;
I ask a freedom from disobedience,
and a freedom for doing your will in all things;
I ask a freedom from doing wrong,
and a freedom for doing great good;
I ask a freedom from sin,
and a freedom for holiness;
I ask a freedom from unreliability
and a freedom for commitment;
I ask a freedom from selfishness,
and a freedom for self-giving;
I ask a freedom from half-hearted faith,
and a freedom for whole-hearted faith;
I ask a freedom from mediocrity,
and a freedom for excellence!
Make my heart free, O my Lord.
In the place where there is doubt in my heart,
free me through faith
In the place where there is fear in my heart,
free me through trust
In the place where there is indifference in my heart,
free me through conviction
In the place where there is hate in my heart,
free me through love
In the place where there is bitterness in my heart,
free me to forgive.
There is no greater freedom than the freedom you give, O Lord.
Therefore I freely choose this day to live in your freedom.
Grant me the grace, the faith, the power, the courage,
and the love of your truth to accomplish this through Jesus Christ my Lord.
Amen.
Conclude with
“Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be.
World without end, Amen.”
[0] lead quote - Joseph Pieper, Faith, Hope and Love, essay on Love, tr. by Richard and Clara Winston, Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago, 1974 p. 178f
[1] ibid. p. 179
[2] Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms, tr. by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1995