Day 29. The Ultimate Sign of the Father’s Love
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
John 3:16
We continue our meditation on the second, but central, Cornerstone: the Father's love. Words are not enough. People can say that they care about you, but in the end, you want to see signs of that love, some kind of proof. “Don't tell me that you love me,” you protest, “show me that you love me.” God understands that we need these signs, these proofs of love. The greater the claims of love, the greater the proof required to back them up.
How has God proven his love for us? It is in the person of Jesus Christ that God demonstrates His infinite love. "In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him" (1 Jn 4:9). Through Jesus we are all made children of God. "But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons" (Gal. 4:45).
When Jesus took on human flesh, something we call the incarnation, he became a living sign of the Father's love. “He is the image (the icon) of the invisible God” (Col 1:12). Everything he did and said revealed the Father's love. That's why he could tell his disciples, "Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). Furthermore, Jesus came to redeem us, to save us. In fact, the name "Jesus" means "God saves." But what do we need to be saved from?
When we were examining the first Cornerstone, our identity as children of God, we turned to the first pages of the Bible to see that in the beginning human persons were created good. Humans and God (and nature) were all in right relationship - that's what the Garden of Eden represents. The sad story is familiar. Adam and Eve freely chose to disobey God through the temptation of the serpent Satan. Through them, sin entered the world.
It was the most tragic moment in human history and its disastrous effects have reverberated through the ages. That first sin, the original sin, was like the tiny tip of a nail in the center of a magnificent mirror that, by a single hammer-blow of defiance, splintered into countless pieces. The image of God that we were supposed to reflect was thus fragmented beyond any earthly means of repair.
Jesus came down from heaven to do what no created being could do. He came to repair the damage of that first sin and of all the sin that followed - including my sins and your sins. He died on the cross to make atonement to make us "at one" with God the Father. Through his suffering and death, we were reconciled with the Father.
Here is the proof. Here is the sign of the Father’s great love. It is the cross of Christ. Consider the implications! “What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him” (Rom 8:31, 32)? God the Father gave the greatest gift he could in order to save us from our sins and demonstrate his great love. Therefore, be confident. “What can separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?...No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us” (Rom 8:35, 36).
Have you ever taken the time to make this gift of salvation personal? Have you ever pondered the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice not for “the sin of the world”, but for your own sin? Tradition holds that if you alone needed salvation — if you were the only sinner in the world — Jesus would have been pleased to die just for you. You are that precious to God. If this doesn’t fill you with overwhelming gratitude, then you haven’t grasped the magnitude of the gift.
Here’s the invitation: If you confess that you are a sinner. If you admit that you are helpless to overcome sin and temptation by your own strength. If you call on the name of Jesus and ask him for grace and forgiveness. If you will be completely honest in confessing your sins, leaving none out. And if you set your whole heart (as best you can) on obeying the Lord, you will experience the full power of God’s redeeming mercy through Jesus Christ. Remember, the Father will love you whether you do this or not. But His love alone cannot save you. He still requires your cooperation. Baptism is the necessary prerequisite for salvation, it is true, but if we fail to make a mature, adult decision in faith to ratify that baptism by a life of obedience to God, it will not be enough to save us.
Without our small contribution, this cannot be accomplished. Yes, salvation is first and foremost a work of God — by analogy, we might say that God contributes 99.99999% of what is needed. But if we fail to add our small fraction of a percent, which will in fact require consistent, honest effort, it will not be enough. This is not a vocation issue. This is a salvation issue. Salvation is not passive. It takes our full participation! It is not a spectator sport, and there is no such thing as spiritual cruise control.
I want to offer you a further invitation. We are approaching the final week of the first semester of this Novena. At the end of this period, you will be doing a thorough examination of your conscience in preparation for confession. Here’s my proposal to you. Let this be more than just an ordinary confession. Let this be a definitive decision to break with any past mediocrity or half-hearted Christianity. God wants your all. You may think this is harder. In fact, in many ways it is easier. Giving only half an effort makes things twice as hard.
If a sailor only lifts his sail halfway up the mast, he doesn’t gain the wind’s power. He works twice as hard at the rudder and oars to go half as far. The same is true for our faith response to God. If we give him our full effort, Jesus will bless our humble offering and multiply it far beyond what we expect. That’s the easy burden of which our Lord once said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Mt. 11:28-30).
Novena Prayer
RENEWAL OF CONSECRATION TO MARY
Mary, please intercede for me during this Discernment Novena.
You heard the voice of the angel and trusted in the plan of God,
Teach me to listen and to trust.
You pondered in your heart the mystery of God’s unfolding will.
Teach me to silently reflect and discern.
You yielded to the power and grace of the Holy Spirit; gratefully receiving His gifts
Teach me to receive the gifts of the Spirit in my life.
You courageously followed the path marked down for you by God – even to the foot of the cross.
Teach me to be courageous in bearing with Jesus my own cross.
Mary, my mother, I consecrate myself to you for the duration of this period of discernment.
Please pray for me that when the time is right, I will respond to God’s invitation in the same words as you:
“I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say” (In my own words, I ask for Mary’s help to receive God’s love fully and freely).
Amen.
Make it My Own
Daily Discernment Workbook
A QUOTE TO NOTE
1. My Own Personal Earthquake.
Is today’s meditation too basic? Some readers might say, “Come on, I know this already. I committed my life to Christ years ago.” If I find myself thinking such things, I can pray and ask the Lord to open my eyes so that I look at these ‘basics’ with renewed wonder and gratitude. The following passage from scripture is followed by a quote from Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to three modern popes. He speaks about the spiritual shake-up we should experience every time we return to the cross of Christ and its personal, powerful meaning for us.
“Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Mt. 27:50-52).
Cantalamessa observes: It is necessary for an earthquake to take place in the life of every man and that he should feel in his heart something of what took place in nature as a warning, at the moment of the death of Jesus when the curtain of the temple was torn in two, the stones broke and the tombs opened. It is necessary that a holy fear of God should shatter once and for all our proud hearts so sure of themselves in spite of everything. All the holy people who were assembled at the Passion are examples of this and encourage us to do just this; the good thief crying out “Remember me!,” the centurion praising God, the multitudes beating their breasts (cf. Lk 23:39 ff.). There have been souls in the Church who experienced this spiritual earthquake and they can help us understand what it consists of. “In a flash I saw myself completely immersed in blood while my spirit knew that it was the blood of the Son of God, for which I myself was to blame for all the sins I saw before me in that moment and I knew that this precious blood had flowed for my salvation. If God’s goodness hadn’t upheld me, I think I would have died of terror so dreadful and terrifying was the sight of sin, no matter how small. Human words cannot express it. To see God, infinite goodness and pureness, offended … surpasses every horror…And besides this, seeing that you are personally responsible for what happened and that if you had been the only one to sin, the Son of God would still have done what he did for all men, destroys and humbles the soul” (Bl. Mary of the Incarnation, Autobiographical Relation of the Year 1654) [1].
2. My Response to God’s Gift
Salvation is truly a gift. We cannot repay such generosity. However, we can make a response of gratitude to God. Consider what Pope Benedict has written about our response to God’s gift.
The Kingdom of God is a gift, and precisely because of this, it is great and beautiful, and constitutes the response to our hope. And we cannot—to use the classical expression—”merit” Heaven through our works. Heaven is always more than we could merit, just as being loved is never something “merited”, but always a gift. However, even when we are fully aware that Heaven far exceeds what we can merit, it will always be true that our behavior is not indifferent before God and therefore is not indifferent for the unfolding of history. We can open ourselves and the world and allow God to enter: we can open ourselves to truth, to love, to what is good. This is what the saints did, those who, as “God’s fellow workers”, contributed to the world’s salvation (cf. 1 Cor 3:9; 1 Th 3:2) [2].
Based on this quote, what is a worthy response to God’s gift of salvation?
Considering my own situation, what is holding me back from making such a response to God’s gift?
3. A Letter to Jesus
I take some time to write a brief letter to Jesus in my journal thanking him for the personal gift of salvation he won for me on the cross.
4. A Letter from Jesus
When I’ve finished the letter above, I prayerfully place myself in the Lord’s presence and write his response to my letter.
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.”
[1] Raneiro Cantalamesssa, OFM, Cap., Life in the Lordship of Christ, A Spiritual Commentary on the Letter to the Romans for a New Evangelization, tr. by Frances Lonergan Villa, Kansas City, Sheed and Ward, 1990, Ch. IV, 5, pp. 69-73
[2] Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, On Christian Hope, 2007, #35
All Scripture quotes from the New American Bible, unless otherwise specified