Before the beginning there was God, a being of pure love, infinitely good, infinitely wise, infinitely powerful, infinitely just.

Love delights to pour itself out. This Love who created us in His own image and likeness taught us, ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’ did it first. Love loved itself first, understood itself perfectly, and such was the power of that Love that Love begat itself, and the perfect outpouring of Love (The Father) to Love (The Son) and the perfectly reciprocal outpouring of Love (The Son) to Love (The Father) together begat Love (The Holy Spirit).

The harmony and unity of this being of pure love is perfect and spectacularly beautiful, and so amazing that determining where The Father ends and The Son begins, and where The Son ends and the Holy Spirit begins, and where the Holy Spirit ends and the The Father begins, and where the The Son ends and The Father begins, where the The Father ends and The Holy Spirit begins, where The Holy Spirit ends and The Son begins is more difficult than pin-pointing the exact location of an electron within an atom.

Love delights to pour itself out, and Love delights even more when its Love is reciprocated. Love is life-giving and fruitful, so the infinite being of pure love began the vast plan of creation. The sheer scope of the intelligence which created matter out of nothingness, and the infinite variety of inanimate things, animate creatures, creatures with souls and creatures of pure spirit, is breathtaking and we only experience a tiny part of it.

Everything created by Love is full of goodness. But for Love to be reciprocated, the creatures with souls and the creatures of pure spirit needed to have the capacity to choose Love or reject Love, and that choice had 3 aspects, to love or not love itself, Love, and other creatures.

Some of the creatures of pure spirit got so caught up in love of themselves that they began to believe that they surpassed their creator and had superior intelligence to their creator and rejected Love by refusing to obey and by refusing to trust in Him. These sad creatures we call demons.

Choosing to not love is a destructive force, and the demons knowing that they could not hurt God Himself, set themselves to destroying creation and especially set themselves to destroying the creatures with souls.

The creatures with souls were tempted not to obey (eating fruit that was forbidden) and tempted not to trust (that God’s instructions were not for their complete good and that God’s instructions were holding them back from better things). They gave in to temptation.

But Love’s plan was much bigger.

The Son consented to enter into creation as a creature with soul and by a sacrificial and expiatory death to pay the infinite price of reparation to the being of pure love, the only offering capable of giving creatures with souls the opportunity to regain the power of choosing Love.

When that Price was paid, The Spirit consented to enter souls who welcomed Him, and wherever He found goodwill in those souls The Spirit empowered them to resist temptation and to choose Love; He empowered them to live the Love that The Son had modelled to them, a life of complete obedience, trust and generosity (a.k.a. outpouring). It is a triple empowering, to love ourselves, to love God, and to love each other; to love in ways beyond our natural abilities due to His sacramental gifts, His spiritual gifts and His charismatic gifts. It is allowing The Spirit full freedom to love through us; to love ourselves, God and others as only The Spirit can.

The Plan of The Father, The Son and The Spirit is to bring each of us fully into the divine communion, unity and harmony of His being.

Every action that is a Yes to Love is a step closer to that Plan.
Every action that is a No to Love is a step away from that Plan.
       
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​A one page PDF version of this is available below:                                                

The Gospel for this Sunday, the 1st Sunday of Lent Year B, comes from the first chapter of St Mark and references the testing Jesus went through during 40 days in the wilderness.

But that isn’t the part that’s striking me, instead it is verse 15 which could be paraphrased ‘everything the family of Israel has been waiting, hoping and longing for over many centuries is at hand, it’s Go time people!, if you want ‘in’ then it’s time to change your lives, take God more seriously than you ever have before, the choice is yours’.

All of the lives of the patriarchs, the judges, the prophets, the kings, have looked forward to the promised Messianic era. It has been a very long wait. Yet once the signals turn green with the baptism of Jesus, and His time in the wilderness, and John’s arrest, action time begins. Lepers get cleansed, demoniacs get freed, all kinds of illnesses get healed, and invitations to radically surrender our lives to God’s will are issued.

We’ve lost the sense of just how big a deal it was back then, and of how bold you had to be to make pronouncements like that.

It still is a big deal. The offer of eternal life with God always is.

Such a big offer requires a very big response; mediocre responses and ‘What are the minimum requirements?’ responses won’t do. 
 
Ash Wednesday, which we celebrated a little differently this year, helps underline the magnitude of the offer. In past years the ash was moistened with holy water and used to make a cross on our foreheads. Under pandemic restrictions the ash with as little moisture as possible was sprinkled on our heads instead. What a reminder of how ephemeral our lives are here on earth, and of how fleeting they are compared to eternity!

It is still Go time for us; if we want to accept the invitation. When we weigh up live on earth vs live eternal in heaven it should be sufficient motivation to re-order our lives towards the goal of heaven. Any other goal is worthless compared to that.

Lent is the graced time to make those necessary adjustments to re-order our lives.

May this Lent be one that really counts, and one that finds us responding, ‘I want in, no matter what; help me change, help me take You far more seriously’.
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#GospelReflection