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On Becoming Lovers of God Sometimes we have strong "temptations" to become lovers of God (taking the word "lover" in its best sense); this is the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we think that if we were to give ourselves totally to God and become much more prayerful and detached from the things of this world, we would really become lovers of God. And we have a great temptation to do this. All of us want to be lovers, but a true lover is a lover of God. When we experience the desire to give ourselves to God in prayer, or by doing an act of charity for another, we feel, in a sense, "tempted" by the Holy Spirit. Growing in love means learning to act on the divine impulse to see past our own needs and wants in order to love what is good for others and not just ourselves. Our whole life is meant to be a career in this type of love. In his recent encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (God is Love), Pope Benedict XVI writes, รข??Love is indeed "ecstasy", not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God: 'Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it.'(Lk 17:33) (no. 6) Through our unity in prayer and good works, in Miles Jesu, we should encourage each other to be great lovers of God, to be full of love, and to go throughout the world spreading this love-sometimes with a smile; with a "good morning"; by forgetting about someone who may have been rude; offering a cup of coffee, or opening a door; saying a prayer, giving a bit of encouragement, or sometimes a rebuke. These are very beautiful ways of spreading the love of God and are very rewarding. It is important to listen to the observations that others make about us, especially those who live and work with us everyday. They can tell us things about ourselves that we do not see. Sometimes these things can be painful to hear because they show us that we are deficient in the way that we love. But we have to either face these things now in this life, or if we at least die in the state of grace, we will need to be purged of them when we come face to face with the infinitely loving God who created us and redeemed us. We must develop a personal relationship with God. In our prayer and all that we do, we must work on falling in love with God, not only with a purely philosophical, faraway God, but with the God who loves us so much that He became a man. Cultivating a relationship of intimacy, love, openness, and even of suffering or just passively accepting things that we don't like out of love. We must each ask ourselves, "What is my personal relationship with Jesus? What is Jesus for me? How much do I love Him" When we place our security in God by developing a true friendship with Him in prayer, we can face ourselves as we are. We can handle hurt feelings and discouragement over our own lack of progress. These things don't make us lose our deep sense of peace with God but merely give us more reason to turn toward Him. |