Deus Caritas Est

Deus Caritas Est

In Festo Sanctissimi Trinitatis

31 May, 2015

God is Love.

Perfect love cannot be contained. It cannot be manifested in isolation. It must be given. And where it is given, there is the Son; the perfection of perfect love; distinct only in its giving but perfect in its essence. And being the reception of perfect love, he too, necessitated by his perfection, gives love for love just as in his essence he is love from love. This perfect impulse to give and receive, which is itself the essence of perfect love, and proceeds in infinity between the giving of the Father and the perfect reception and returning of love in its totality by the Son, is the Holy Spirit. Yes, God is indeed love, though not as we know it.

This eternal reality of God, without beginning or end, perfect in its impulse to give and be given, in time is revealed through the action of love in creation. Love begets love and rejoices in its proceeding. However what is created of love, although it is made of the perfection of that love, is nonetheless, by virtue of it being made, not of one essence with its maker. It needs to choose freely to give back of the love it has received in its generation. And at the fall, the creation of love chose to direct love inwardly on itself rather than to return it wholly to the love from which it was made. Unable to participate in the infinity of the divine love, creation itself became finite and subject to the decay of finite love that always gives less until there is nothing more.

Every error of the human condition is a defect of love. We desire love for ourselves and thus direct this spirit of love inwardly. We may love ourselves as completely as human, selfish love allows, but love is shared imperfectly, giving only ever of what we hope to receive. The unquantifiable love of God is quantified in man and apportioned in our relationships with others. Thus we may ask, whom do we love more, our spouses or our parents or our offspring? The answer creates worldly divisions in the eternally indivisible love that is God because its eternality and inexhaustibility is not perceived in fallen man.

Hence the Incarnation of the Word; the love that is God joined perfectly with creation to correct the defect of love in mankind and to choose freely for the created the Creator as the source and object of love through the perfect giving of self. Hence the sending of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of the faithful, that the impulse of love be no longer directed within ourselves but without, in eternity to God from whom all love is given, and in our daily lives to our neighbour with the infinite-abundance of love received from God in Christ.

Thus Christ’s commands to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind; and to love your neighbour as you love yourself. For it is in this total abandonment of all our reason in love of God with our whole spiritual being, that we once again participate in the divine being of love and receive from that relationship the totality of God who created us in his love. Our souls caught up in the infinity of eternally perfect love, in our own time and mortal world we must then bring this spirit of love that dwells in our hearts to all mankind. And in that complete and perfect giving of self, which is to love our neighbour as perfectly as the love that is within ourselves, we complete the eternal image of God in which we were created in our own times, and when our time ends we then return to that perfect love from which we were made.

“Dearly beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God. He that loves not, knows not God: for God is love. By this has the love of God appeared towards us, because God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him. In this is love: not as though we had loved God, but because he has first loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins. My dearest, if God has so loved us; we also ought to love one another. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.”

1 John 4:7-12