His Love is Faithful

Commitment can, on one hand be a very difficult concept to fully embrace, especially since everything or everyone we commit to here on earth is imperfect. No matter how we try, we will let others down or be let down ourselves. This makes it very difficult to hang on or stick with something. Commitment on a human level will always fall short in some way.

Our Father, though, is on a different plain. He is profoundly complex, yet amazingly simple. He is love. He cannot let down or disappoint; these are not in his nature. The Father has a stick-to-itiveness about him that puts us to shame.

How is his love faithful? How can we answer that? I look at myself times and wonder: would I love myself and welcome myself back? But, he always does. Because he is love and we are made in his image, he cannot deny himself. It would be like accepting a puzzle that is incomplete as finished. He knows that there is so much more to us than what we present. We are part of him…we make up his heart.

One question that I can somehow answer is, “How do I know that his love is faithful? Two ways: Jesus in the Eucharist and Reconciliation. By giving us his Son, we have access back to the Father and are allowed an intimate interaction with the very one who is most precious to him. The Eucharist gives our life meaning and because of the Cross, our suffering has reason. The Eucharist shows us that the Father is faithful because he shows that he offered his very own heart and return for our love. Because we are receiving Christ, we can see the Father as our Father and fall even more in love with him and even with those around us.

Reconciliation. I have to admit that there was a time that I didn't get it. And, therefore, denied myself access to a different aspect of love-Mercy. I know the Father's love is faithful because I can keep coming back weighed down with sin and struggle. As I utter words that take so much of myself to say, he is there along with his Son in the person of the priest…saying, “Thank you for coming. I have been waiting for you. I love you; I've never stopped loving you, and I forgive you. I will give you strength to resist these temptations.” Exiting the confessional is like crossing the threshold into the Father's arms and his loving embrace. The Son has once more led us to his Father.

The Father's love is faithful because he always wants us to be in relationship with him, know his love, and bring his love to others. This is the part that is so simple but so complex. It's not completely new information. Yet, it can be extremely difficult to accept. He sees what is hurting within us but also what is the best in us, and wants us to live out the latter.

Sometimes, he walks in front of me leading.

Sometimes, he walks behind me encouraging.

Sometimes, he walks besides me correcting.

Sometimes, he carries me and consoles me.

Sometimes, he is silent align me to grow and do on my own.

Sometimes, he comes with a whisper of wisdom on which way to go.

But always always always: he is there.

He that is love is truly faithful.

Bearing Fruit

I thought it would be beneficial to expand on the question, "How do we know that we are receiving God's love?” True love cannot contain itself and thus is contagious and grows. We hear about this in regards to a married couple having children. Love is contagious, shared, and grows in a marriage usually through the fruit of children. But, as his children, how can the Father's love be fruitful in our own lives? Even more so, love is contagious and shared when we enter into relationship with the Father.

I think there are 2 ways that our Father's love is fruitful: within our own hearts and beyond our own needs. If the Father's love is full, as was mentioned earlier, than our hearts are, in return, filled and stirred up from within. We have found what we have been looking for. So, indeed, our life changes! Instead of looking at what others can do for us or what we can do to be happy to, "How can I make others happy?” Or, "What do others need?”

A parent holding their newborn baby is not concerned with how they feel personally. The main concern, their entire beings are consumed with this child that is in their arms that is quite literally their hearts outside of themselves.The fruit of God's love is love, zeal for sharing what he's given us wanting those around us to know that they are loved...to. such. incredible. degree. For ourselves, we may find peace and joy in sharing this love, though, sometimes it can simply be the fact that we know that this love must be shared. 

Here I would like to point out that all this love sharing can seem fluffy...warm and fuzzy if you will, but it's not. Not everyone wants to be loved. Some people don't know what love is and when we try to share to love, it can be difficult. Complicated. Furthermore, not everyone is lovable... or easy to love. Some people smell or are not very pretty. And, we need the Father's love to be able to love because somedays, we don't feel loving. Allowing God's love to flow through us is not for the faint of heart. However, we still come out somehow richer and better for it because our hearts have grown larger–our capacity to love has been expanded.

This leads me to the 2nd way that God's love is fruitful: it causes our gaze to move beyond ourselves to others. Actually, it allows our gaze to rest on the Beloved. Not all newborns are pretty, but to their parents they're gorgeous beyond words. The Father's love allows us to have wisdom to see with his eyes beyond who is in front of us to Jesus within the other person. To Jesus alone, sweaty, and mutilated on the cross. Or Jesus sitting with prostitutes and tax collectors. Or Jesus helpless in his mother's arms.

The Father's love allows us to bring his children, our brothers and sisters, into his embrace through words that we choose carefully, to sharing what we've been given, to spending time with them. This is how seeds are planted, love grows and is fruitful...thus making us truly alive.

The Father's Love is Full

More than any other, the love that comes from our Father is full–complete and lacking nothing. It is full in the way that it has its own end, but also in a way that when we receive it...freely, openly, we are filled in such a way that we have reached capacity, yet on some level there somehow seems to be more that we can receive from him. As sons and daughters, we are nourished by the Father's love, we find ourselves in the Father's love, and we are made whole by the Father's love.

The Saints, once converted, were transfixed on the Father. They tasted his love and sought to live their lives to receive more. By opening their hearts to this love, they opened their hearts to eternity and saw everything that they had tried to put in its place before had paled in comparison.

How do we receive love in this way?

Whatever one asks such a question a response would probably be to "open your heart". That seems abstract on some level… so how do we do that? Pray. Still abstract for some people. Perhaps we could start on a smaller scale with saying,” yes”. (That is, by the way, a prayer, but we say yes and mean it.) What are you saying yes to? The question that the Father has been asking, “Will you let me love you?” Saying yes starts simply and allows him to enter our hearts. As the Gentleman that he is, he won't take up too much space too soon, but he will come into our lives. Then yes leads us to other statements: show me, guide me. Little by little, we have opened our hearts and have developed relationship with our Father. Then, we get to see what the saints saw while they were in formation on earth: "God's love is sweet, renewing, and necessary, and I want more.”

How do we know that we are receiving God's love?

Our perspective changes. That which brought us joy before doesn't somehow work in light of this love that we've received from him. The vices that we turned to before seem less important and depending on the nature, almost gross to us. (Although, we can still be tempted from time to time.) This is because we have come to draw pure water and to do such things again would pollute it. This is how we know that God's love is filling because we become fulfilled in a way that only connecting with him can we be fed, satisfied. No human, pet, amount of money, vice or self-help book can do this for us.

Additionally, despite the fact that the Father's love is full and complete, it doesn't cast off love or contact with other human beings. Quite the opposite… God's love is contagious and eager to be shown–that's how we were created–to want to show this love that we've been given. So the fullness of God's love leads us to love others fully and correctly in a way that brings to mind God, who is love, when we are interacting with them.

A Loving and Merciful Father

"God never ceases to be the Father of his children." St. Anthony of Padua

In the previous post, I reflected on John 3:16, this post will focus on the parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke.

I'm sure we've read or heard this parable many times, but have we really understood it? If we did, then we'd be struck in awe at the capacity of love the father (our Father) has for the once lost son (us), and it would transform us that such love exists.

Let's review the story. The youngest son of a rich man has the audacity to ask for his inheritance while his father is still alive. The father knows what's going to happen to it; he knows his son, but he gives it to him anyway. He doesn't force his son to stay, nor does he tell him how wrong he thinks his son is for making this choice. He let's him go.

Our Father in Heaven, to pause here, is this way, sometimes.There are times in our lives that we ask for what we want...we ask not what we are ready for or really need but what we think we deserve. As a loving Father, sometimes He will give us what we want knowing what will happen. However, because he doesn't want to force us to stay or be in relationship with him, he allows us to go and gives us what we ask for. He watches us take it and walk away from him. Our Father loves us enough to allow us space to learn what we need to.

In the case of the Prodigal Son, he learned that he needed his father, that he wasn't ready to make such a decision on his own, and that he loved his father. As he returns, the father runs to him-not to make him feel bad or tell him that he had made a dumb decision, but to embrace him...his own son was lost but has returned. He's come back! Returned to his father...faced his father. The father could've locked doors, put the son to work as a hired hand, or even have disown him, but he doesn't! He celebrates his return. Again, our Father is like this. He waits for us to figure things out and come to the conclusion that we do need him, we need his love, and without him we are not ready to make the best decisions. That we are selfish, and finally, need him to even get through each day.

Our Father in heaven loves us to the extent that reveals himself in his Son, exposes himself naked on the Cross, and gives us his heart...along with the freedom to choose: What we think we want, or what will bring us fulfillment. No matter which we choose, our Father is there alongside us always ready to embrace us.

So We Would Know His Love

"There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do 

Go to the ends of the earth for you 

Make you happy, make your dreams come true 

To make you feel my love.."

There are two places in Scripture that speak in a way that we can understand the extent of the Father's love. In John, we read that God loved us to the extent that He sent His only begotten Son. In Luke, we read about a father's extravagant mercy and love. In this post, I will reflect a bit on John 3:16.

The greatest statement of Our Father's Love is the Word spoken in His Son, Jesus. In seeing a world, the world that He created fall short of promises made, a final word had to be spoken, in a way that would get our attention. This love, this Word is one that humans could somehow understand yet still not be able to comprehend. What Father would give His own Son? How is this love and not barbaric or selfish on the Father's part? It seems that a Father would take His Son's place, not sacrifice Him.

How does Jesus interact with His Father? It is more important for Him to be in His Father's House than with His earthly family. Jesus risks His reputation and ultimately loses His life for claiming to be, Himself, God's own Son. Also, He always reveres His Father above Himself and seeks time away with Him. Finally, He is obedient, selflessly to His Father. This all takes place as Jesus grows up. As we follow His story, we see the relationship that exists between Father and Son. Through this relationship. we grow in understanding that not only is the Father giving of Himself by sending His Son to come to our human level, but He is also trading one love for another.

The importance of love and relationship that is revealed between Jesus and His Father is almost, seemingly nothing compared to the love that the Father has for us...the same children who have gone back on promises and offended Him with their fruitless, half-hearted, and loveless sacrifices. From the Father's perspective, it would seem, that He is willing to do anything to get us to know His love.

The Father's Love is Free

"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7


After returning from a Life Night on Love, I am inspired to reflect on this Love that God is, that he as shown us first, that Paul speaks about.


For love to grow, relationship must be present. So, it seems that we must be in relationship with our Father in order to know his love. This is difficult for many of us because it seems, at times, that the Father is a silent partner. We cannot see him like we can our brothers and sisters, our parents, our significant others. Unfortunately, for some, it can seem that the Father wants us to follow a bunch of rules or do certain things to win his attention. But if God is love, and he wants us to love him, and to love others, surely, there is something else here.


Our Father's love is free. Perhaps that is why it seems that he is quiet. He does not bombard or force. He is always with us, his children, but he respects our hearts and our space. The invitation has been given. Sent for thousands of years since the creation of our first parents. However, with Jesus, he sends us an engraved invitation..one for all mankind to be welcomed into his fold. We only need to RSVP.


We have heard this, I'm certain, sitting in the pews, or read it in Scripture. Yet, sometimes, we still don't hear him. Couldn't he just do something to get our attention? Maybe. But, could it be that he already has and we haven't noticed? Then, also, would it be that we'd want something else, another sign? We might be tempted to begin a relationship with him because of what he can do for us. That's not free. We might also be tempted to only go to him for things we need. That's not free, either. That is use. Both of these put our Father in a box and do not allow us to have a true relationship with him that could live up to its potential or go beyond our expectations. 


For his love to be free, the Father's love has to be available, and we have to freely accept it. This may mean that we don't know everything. We must have faith...that f-word that some do not like to use because it's not concrete. We must trust him. The love that flows from God the Father to His Beloved Son and goes back in return is an exchange that takes place freely, without hesitation, with full trust because each wants what is best for the other and loves without holding anything back, without being attached to other things.


For us, we must be open to see that God the Father is not human. He won't hold grudges or keep count of how many times we've failed him. He won't humiliate us or put us down. He won't bring up our past, unless he wants to bring us healing in there somewhere. For us to see that the Father's love is free, we must come to the humbling understanding that he is our Daddy who loves us no matter what...who wants the best for his children...and then we grow to want the best for him. What could that possibly be? What is best for the Father is for his children to allow him into their daily lives, to place our desires, failures, goals, dreams into his hands, and to come to him face to face.


By offering us love that is free, the Father frees us from worldly attachments, and even the boundaries, expectations, and burdens we place on ourselves.


"Our Lord loves you and loves you tenderly; and if He does not let you feel the sweetness of His love, it is to make you more humble and abject in your own eyes."
--St. Pio of Pietrelcino

Reflection I on Our Hearts' Desire

In the Adult Catechism, we read, "Only in God will we find the truth, peace, and happiness for which we never stop searching. Created in God's image, we are called to know and love the Lord." Who will know our hearts and what would bring us, as individuals, peace and happiness, but the One who made us? St. Augustine reminds us, "God loves each of us as if there was only one to love." How awesome is that! Our Creator not only put us here, but he also wants us to get to know him. The same Creator of the vast oceans, blue sky, and enormous mountains is the same One who wants a relationship with us. The One who has created us desires us to 'know and love' him! This is no distant 'being' who just put things in motion and walked away.

As I reflect further on the words from Our Hearts' Desire, I get excited because it reminds me that I've been purposely created by a loving God. To me, this echoes the words of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah when they speak of the love and care God has for his children and creation. (Isaiah 43:1 You are Mine, Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you).

I also think of the Holy Trinity and how each person glorifies the other. Even, though Christ is not mentioned, specifically, in the first post it also 'speaks' of him as he is the eternal, loving, Word of God and embodies the love that Our Father has for us, his children. Since, the Holy Spirit is the Love between the Father and the Son, he provides us access through which we can connect to the Father. We cannot get to our heart, nor the heart of the Father without His Son and the Spirit.

With so much love surrounding us, it's hard not to feel it when I reflect on these words. The word love is mentioned several times, yet it is a love that is different from friendship, spouse, or even that between an earthly parent and child. It is a love of one known and created by the Knower and Creator...before his or her existence is even thought of on this planet. This is a love that is deep, timeless, endless, and grace-filled as it is undeserved. As we grasp for fulfillment in this life, our hearts long for love like this.
St. Augustine said it well when he said,  "Our hearts are restless (Lord) until they rest in you." Indeed.