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God is Love–that is pretty amazing, and that requires a response from us
This is an essay I just wrote for my moral issues class. So far I haven’t posted assignments from school, but I worked pretty hard on this one, it has a good topic (God), and none of the other posts I am working on are done yet… Anyway, enjoy! Also, if you all could say a quick prayer for my cousin who received her 1st Holy Communion today that would be wonderful!
“He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.”[1] This phrase from John’s first letter gives us a summary of the entire Gospel message, love. Love is our marching orders, so to speak, what Christ calls us to do. The great commandment, given by Jesus, clarifies this. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[2] As the textbook notes, “[t]he theological virtues [one of which is love] relate directly to God, are infused into the souls of believers by God, and are revealed through faith.”[3] Thus, our ability to love, both God and others, is a virtue given to us by God. The final part of the quote from John’s letter, “God is love”, seems to me to be one of the most profound and foundational of the Bible, not only because it gives us such a beautiful glimpse of the radically different nature of God, but it also give us the example and source of perfect love. As the apostles asked Jesus how to pray, we should also look to Him to find how to love. Of course, this means looking at Jesus, Love Incarnate, as shown in the Gospels, but I believe it will also be instructive to look into the Old Testament for examples of God’s love.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.’”[4] The creation story is one of total love, shown in God’s immense generosity in creating and providing for man. He also endows man with free will, a faculty that gives us the choice to choose God, or not. All too often, as God knew beforehand, humans would choose themselves over God, through sin, but God, in His love, created us anyway.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.’”[4] The creation story is one of total love, shown in God’s immense generosity in creating and providing for man. He also endows man with free will, a faculty that gives us the choice to choose God, or not. All too often, as God knew beforehand, humans would choose themselves over God, through sin, but God, in His love, created us anyway.
“And the whole congregation of the people of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and said to them, ‘Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full’ for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day’”[5]. In Exodus, we find more examples of God’s tremendous love shown in his patient protection of His chosen people. God hears His people’s cry, brings them out of Egypt, and feeds them while they are wondering in the desert. This He does to the people who are constantly falling into idolatry and rejecting His blessings.
“O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.”[6] During the Babylonian captivity, when Israel was taken into bondage in Babylon because of their infidelity to God, we see God’s infinite love in His offering to forgive Israel and bring them back if they turn back to Him. His chosen people have continued to not trust God, yet He keeps giving them chances to turn back and again receive His protection.
In the New Testament, we find Jesus, God made man, acting in exactly the same way. Recall Jesus’ feeding of the four thousand: “Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me no three days, and have nothing to eat; and I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.’”[7] The story continues with the Apostles not knowing where to get food, and Jesus providing for the immense crowd by miraculously multiplying the seven loaves and fish. I think it is important to see that this miracle, as all of Jesus’ other miracles, was performed not out of Jesus wanting to impress people, but out of love.
The final example of God’s love, and the epitome of the entire story of salvation stretching back to creation, is Jesus’ death on the cross. After indescribable agony, Our Savior, hanging on the cross gasps out “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”[8] This is true love. This is the incredible, radical, seemingly irrational love that God has for us, and this incredible love is what God is calling us to do. God’s generosity in creation, protection during the exodus, mercy in the Babylonian captivity, compassion in feeding the four-thousand, and forgiveness during His passion, all stem from His infinite love for us. But, these actions - generosity, mercy, forgiveness – aren’t things that we can give to God. Certainly, we can be loving in this way to our fellow man, but what does it mean to love God? The Great Commandment of Jesus is to love God completely, and neighbor as yourself, the first part cannot be forgotten. I think the answer to this question of how to love God can be found in what Jesus did at the Last Supper. “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”[9] The Eucharist, Jesus’ true presence in the Sacred Species at Mass, is love itself transubstantiated so we can consume it. Through the Eucharist we can best be filled with God’s love. At the same time, the Eucharist is the perfect example of what it means to love, and the answer to how we can love God. This Sacrament, in which Christ continues to give Himself completely to us, as He did on Calvary, must remind us that we too are called to give ourselves completely to our neighbor. “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”[10] True Christian love must be both to God and neighbor; through our neighbor we love God, and through God we are able love our neighbor. The Eucharist gives us the necessary grace to live up to this high calling, total self-giving to God, especially in and through our fellow man.
The final example of God’s love, and the epitome of the entire story of salvation stretching back to creation, is Jesus’ death on the cross. After indescribable agony, Our Savior, hanging on the cross gasps out “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”[8] This is true love. This is the incredible, radical, seemingly irrational love that God has for us, and this incredible love is what God is calling us to do. God’s generosity in creation, protection during the exodus, mercy in the Babylonian captivity, compassion in feeding the four-thousand, and forgiveness during His passion, all stem from His infinite love for us. But, these actions - generosity, mercy, forgiveness – aren’t things that we can give to God. Certainly, we can be loving in this way to our fellow man, but what does it mean to love God? The Great Commandment of Jesus is to love God completely, and neighbor as yourself, the first part cannot be forgotten. I think the answer to this question of how to love God can be found in what Jesus did at the Last Supper. “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”[9] The Eucharist, Jesus’ true presence in the Sacred Species at Mass, is love itself transubstantiated so we can consume it. Through the Eucharist we can best be filled with God’s love. At the same time, the Eucharist is the perfect example of what it means to love, and the answer to how we can love God. This Sacrament, in which Christ continues to give Himself completely to us, as He did on Calvary, must remind us that we too are called to give ourselves completely to our neighbor. “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”[10] True Christian love must be both to God and neighbor; through our neighbor we love God, and through God we are able love our neighbor. The Eucharist gives us the necessary grace to live up to this high calling, total self-giving to God, especially in and through our fellow man. 
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