24. God's Love For Creatures

 

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “God's Love For Creatures.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogmaby Father James Bellord.

I. God does not stand apart from His creation, indifferent to it and neglecting it. “Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made” (Wisd. xi. 25). The propension of the divine will is one of complacency and benevolence towards all that is good. The first object of this love is the Supreme Good, the Divine Essence; the second object is created good. All creatures are good, as deriving from God, and as being reflections, and in some sort images of the divine perfections. The love of God for the Godhead is communicated to that which is so closely connected with the Godhead as are its productions, its creatures. On every single creature, then, God dwells with pleasure and love. On every one of them does He bestow His favours; natural favours on those that are of the natural order, and much more abundant supernatural ones on those that are supernatural. “Thou openest Thy hand and fillest every creature with blessing” (Wisd. xi. 25). The love of God for men is far in excess of what He bestows on the lower creation; and among men He lavishes a far more intense love on those who are members of the mystical body of His Son, and who serve Him with all their ability. Your love should be given first of all to the most worthy object, i.e. God, and then should extend in due order to all creatures of God for His sake, because they are His and are loved by Him.

II. Consider the qualities of the love of God for you and all His creatures. 

1. It is eternal. Your image has always been present to the consciousness of God, and He has always taken delight in it. “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee” (Jer. xxxi. 3). 

2. It is constant; it remains unchanged even when we have turned against God by sin. He still goes on bestowing favours and calling us to His grace. 

3. It is gratuitous. God has nothing to gain from us in return. We have nothing and can do nothing. There is no attractiveness in us that He should desire us, except what He Himself has imparted to us. 

4. It is individual. God loves each one as fully as if that creature were the only object of His infinite love. No one need be jealous lest the love given to others be so much taken from him. Be faithful for ever to the love of God who has first loved you. “Forsake not an old friend, for the new will not be like him” (Eccli. ix. 14). Strive to love God, 

1. perpetually, 

2. without wavering or weariness, 

3. for His own sake and not your own, 

4. as the sole object of your love, loving all others in Him.

III. Consider the efficacy of God’s love. Created love is for the most part selfish, useless, noxious even; it is changeable, inconstant, and is seldom able to do such good as it desires. The love of God produces every good in its object; it gratifies, enriches, ennobles, glorifies. Human love is drawn forth by some good quality in its object; God’s love is the cause of all goodness; it creates and diffuses the goodness which attracts it. If God were to withdraw His love momentarily from us, we should at once lose all excellence, all our virtues, all happiness, hope, existence even. God’s love then is the sum of all good to you here, and more especially hereafter. Do not barter it for any transient pleasure or advantage of this world. If you possess it, what does all else matter to you? And you have it, for Our Lord Himself has assured you of it, and has proved it by His deeds. Let this be your delight, your support, your consolation, your compensation under all circumstances. Try to love Him as well as you can, and you need have no fear as to the rest.

 

23. The Liberty of God

I. Liberty is a great and magnificent prerogative. God possesses it in perfection, in a manner beyond our conception. We delight in it, and are continually extending it and safeguarding it; but how imperfect it is with us! Our liberty consists to a considerable extent in restraints on liberty, so that each may be protected against the inevitable encroachments of others. As our liberties increase so do our laws. The most autocratic monarch is restrained in his freedom by international law, by public opinion, by etiquette and custom, by neighbouring countries and by his subjects. Above all, the freest of mankind are subject to God, bound to accept His revelation and obey His laws; they can indeed disobey, but by so doing they become subject to penal consequences here and hereafter. There are other limitations of our freedom imposed by God, which we are not able to transgress; we are bound down to a narrow corner of the universe, we are limited to a few years of life, we are checked continually by the weakness of our faculties. God is absolutely independent and sovereign, and can dispose of infinite powers. Such liberty united to such power would be terrible in any being not possessed of infinite wisdom and goodness. In God all these faculties are one. We, too, require goodness in proportion to our share of liberty. Otherwise liberty becomes a mere instrument of oppression in the hands of the strong and the few. The machinery of law is a mere makeshift to supply the want of moral goodness as a check on the abuses of individual liberty.

II. God is absolutely free in the determinations of His will towards creatures. This is not the liberty of caprice and continual change, but a free determination, immutable and eternal nevertheless, because founded on perfect knowledge of all things present and future. As towards Himself the determination of God’s will is fully voluntary, but it is a necessity of His perfect nature. It is impossible for God to do otherwise than delight in the perfection and beauty and the operations of His Divine Essence. But God was not necessitated in creating this world. He freely chose to act, and accordingly called into being this universe with all its series of creatures, instead of an indefinite number of others which He might have made. Now that God has created the present universe, its material elements go on necessarily in the path of life and growth appointed for them, and they cannot now be other than they are; but this necessity is created by the fact of God’s action, and did not exist anteriorly to compel Him to make things as they are. Pay homage to God’s liberty by dedicating yours to His service. Thus only will you find true liberty of action and success in your works.

III. Further, in the execution of His will God is free from all interference and obstruction. There is none to question His liberty or His actions. “Who shall say to Thee, What hast Thou done; or who shall withstand Thy judgments?” (Wisd. xii. 12). No difficulty deters God. The whole universe is no more strain on His power than the creation of a particle of dust. One act of volition is sufficient to call into existence all the substances, all the enormous forces, all the varied life and intricate arrangements of the world. Our liberty is not complete, because we are liable to fall into sin; our best resolutions fail, and we are but broken reeds. “To will good is present with me, but to accomplish that which is good I find not. For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do” (Rom. vii. 18, 19). Not so with God. Sin and injustice can find no place in Him, nor can they force Him to compromise with them. Keep yourself free from sin. This is the truest liberty here, and the greatest exercise of human strength and determination. This gives you the true liberty of God.

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22. Conformity to God's Will

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “Conformity to God’s Will.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogmaby Father James Bellord.

I. The will of God is the law of our life; our will is the motive power in our life; if our will, then, is harmonious with the will of God, our life and action will be perfect, in accordance with their law, and in resemblance to God. To accept fully the will of God is indeed a strict duty, but it is also most meritorious. It is an act of profound submission to God in that we subject to His dominion that faculty which holds dominion in our lives, and so exalt His divine authority. It is a grateful sacrifice to God to offer Him a thing that is so entirely our own; and as this faculty sums up all that we have, the oblation of it is a holocaust, a consecration of all our being to God.

If we carry out the spirit of conformity fully, we shall be led thereby to the practice of the highest virtues. There is prudence in taking so infallible and beneficial a rule as our guide. There is justice, because we render to the Supreme Being what is His due. Nothing gives such fortitude in acting and enduring as the consciousness that we are fulfilling the will of God. Temperance or moderation is identical with restraining those appetites that oppose the divine will. We acquire perfect peace and security when we feel that everything is ordained by God, and content ourselves with it accordingly.

Conformity to God’s will is one of the characteristics of the blessed in heaven; and as to us on earth, Our Lord says, “Whoever shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother” (Matt. xii. 50). Offer your will to God. Desire nothing apart from Him.

II. There are four principal forms of this high virtue.

Conformity of obedience, whereby we desire to obey all those commands and prohibitions which are essential to our salvation.


Conformity of habit, by which we cultivate in ourselves the same ideas and dispositions towards different objects that God has. This is what St. Paul commands: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. ii. 5). Consider how Our Lord regarded such things as pleasure, labour, death, riches, prayer, mankind, God.


Conformity of aim, by which we strive after the same objects as God does; viz., His glory, the diffusion of knowledge and love of Him, the reign of justice, the salvation of souls.


Conformity of object, i.e., desiring everything that God desires without exception, and rejecting everything unreservedly that He disapproves of. This last can only be practised perfectly in heaven.

Inquire as to God’s will in each respect and see how you are conformed to it. Never resist it in the smallest degree, for “who hath resisted Him and hath had peace?” (Job ix. 4).

III. This last kind of conformity in its perfect form is not demanded of us on earth; our weakness can hardly rise to that height. Our Lord Himself mercifully accommodated His example to our capacities; for, while resigning Himself perfectly to the divine will, He said, “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me” (Matt. xxvi. 39).

We too are allowed to pray for favours and deprecate chastisement, in the hope that God may have so arranged things from the beginning, in prevision of our prayers, as to grant our desires; but we must be prepared to accept a refusal or a delay with contentment and gratitude.

It is a great perfection, however, “to ask nothing and refuse nothing” in the temporal order; to cast ourselves unreservedly into the arms of the divine will, indifferent to all that may happen, wishing only that God’s purposes be accomplished, and knowing that everything He decrees is arranged for the best. So did the saints generally act in regard of themselves.

Desire at least to have this conformity. Trust more in God. Be sure that “to them that love God all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints” (Rom. viii. 28).

21. The Double Will of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Double Will of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

I. The will of God is one simple act without progressive stages or variation. Yet it has different effects according to the difference of the objects it deals with, like the sunlight, which to the healthy organism is a delight, but torture to the feeble and diseased eye. To represent this fact to ourselves we have to reduce it to terms of human ideas and speak of a double will in God. Scripture holds the same language, and tells us of God changing His decrees towards the sinner when he repents, and the just man when he falls away (Jer. xviii. 9, 10).

The primordial intention of God in creation was to “have all men to be saved;” and therefore “the one Mediator of God and men . . . gave Himself a redemption for all” (1 Tim. ii. 4–6). This we call the antecedent will of God. Man, however, is absolutely free, even to the extent of resisting Omnipotence. God does not break man’s will by force, but ratifies his choice and allows him to bear the consequences. To this extent the assent of God’s will depends on man’s; and therefore we speak of God’s subsequent will, as if it were formed later than the primordial will for such a man’s salvation, and after the prevision of his free action.

Thus we reconcile the apparent contradiction that nothing happens without God’s will, and yet His will is contradicted; that Almighty power desires a man’s salvation, and yet that man is lost. There are mysterious depths in the Divine Will that we cannot fathom. “Thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter” (John xiii. 7). Wait in patience.

II. The efficiency of God’s antecedent will amounts to this, that He desires most urgently the salvation of every man, and brings it about efficaciously, except so far as each one’s free choice and deliberate obstinacy prevent it. God bestows the means of salvation on all, not scantily, but with at least as great a prodigality as we see in the material creation. He says of the lost soul, “What is there more that I ought to do to My vineyard that I have not done to it?” (Isa. v. 4).

Many labour under peculiar disabilities, but the bounteous ways of Divine Providence are peculiar for each man. For every disadvantage there is compensation, for weakness there is gentle pity, for the effects of heredity or misfortune there is the broadest allowance. God does not command the impossible; He requires from each man only in proportion to what he has received; and, as the Gospels often show, the lot of the least endowed is often better than that of the most favoured.

Thank God for His desire for your salvation. Trust in Him and do not wrong His mercy by any suspicion. Do what you can, and your salvation is secure.

III. If any man perish, he perishes in defiance of the antecedent will of God. “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye from your evil ways; and why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezech. xxxiii. 11). If the subsequent will has consented to the soul’s loss, it is the doing of that soul alone. “Destruction is from thyself, O Israel” (Osee xiii. 9).

A very small amount of knowledge suffices for salvation, and God at some time gives this to all. Temptation in itself is never fatal: we are helped to bear it, and grace is proportioned to our needs. “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able” (1 Cor. x. 13). Prayer places the whole force of God’s omnipotence in our hands; it pierces the clouds, and, according to Our Lord’s repeated promises, its effect is infallible.

Only the most absolute carelessness and shocking perversity are capable of neutralizing God’s will to save our souls. Still you must always work out your salvation with fear and trembling. You cannot depend on yourself; there are such enormous possibilities of perversity in you. 

20. The Will of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Will of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Will of God

I. The will is a necessary accompaniment of intelligence. The intelligence knows and compares different things, or different courses of action; the will is the executive power which gives effect to the judgments. In the intelligence activity commences, by the will it is carried to completion. The Supreme Power is not a blind force like the air or gravitation; such a power would be inferior to us who possess a will, and it could not have given birth to an effect in us so far superior to the cause. The divine power, mercy, justice, generosity, all imply the determination of an infinite will. God possesses this faculty, like all others, in an infinite degree. He has the power of choosing or rejecting, of desiring, of inclining towards His creatures, taking delight in them, and of loving them.

The will of God differs from ours in several respects: 1. it does not waver between good and evil, but is irrevocably fixed in its determination towards perfect good; 2. it is not affected or changed by external forces, but it exercises complete domination over them; 3. it is not impotent and fragile, but it is all-powerful and invincible. Nothing is more perfect, more mighty, more beneficent than the Divine Will. God “worketh all things according to the counsel of His will” (Eph. i. 11). As you serve God by your reason and intelligence in receiving the truths of faith, complete the offering by the service of your will, inclining towards Him, obeying His commands, delighting in Him, loving Him.

II. The act of volition by which God wills a thing and takes delight in it is called His good-pleasure. The primary inclination of the divine will must necessarily be towards that object which is in itself most perfect and good; viz., towards His own Divine Essence. The full and infinite determination of His will is towards this, and He loves it with an infinite delight.

Secondarily the will of God goes out towards creation. He sees in His Divine Essence the innumerable forms of life in which His perfections can be manifested; and His good-pleasure determines to exercise His power by producing outside of Himself some of these. The different series of beings are called forth, and energies are implanted in them to guide their development according to their kinds. Some of these beings are intelligent and free. These are the special objects of the divine complacency. God wills them to have liberty to control their acts, and light and strength to keep His law, and at the same time power to choose the contrary with all its consequences. Thank God for that determination of His will which called you into existence, gave you a soul with its powers, grace, knowledge and strength, and the reversion of a heavenly kingdom.

III. The phrase “Will of God” also denotes these external manifestations of God’s good-pleasure which are intended to guide our conduct. Such are: 1. the permission of moral evil and its consequence, physical evil; 2. the prohibition of moral evil; 3. the operation of good in us by His grace; 4. the command to do certain good actions; 5. the counsel to do other acts which are not laid upon all men, and which we are at liberty not to do if we so desire.

These expressions of God’s will always stand, whether men conform themselves to them or not; the obligation to observe them remains, and adequate consequences will follow infallibly on obedience or disobedience. One stage of God’s external will may be contravened; but He is not mocked, for even this results in the fulfilment of His interior will. “Be not unwise, but understanding what is the will of God” (Eph. v. 17). As His servants our first care should be to know His will and do it. It is often hard to know it, and the knowledge is given only after much delay and in answer to prayer. “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts ix. 6). Whatever it be, carry it out minutely and fearlessly.

19. The Life of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Life of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Life of God

I. Holy Scripture speaks of the life of God as one of His distinctive attributes; it frequently calls Him the Living One or the Living God. He affirms by His life, in Ezechiel: “As I live, saith the Lord:” and the angel in the Apocalypse “lifted up his hand and swore by Him that liveth for ever and ever” (Apoc. x. 17). A living being is one that has in itself a principle of operation or of movement. Life is the source of activity either in regard to oneself or others. God has this. He is not a dead inactive substance, He does not operate or move in accordance with some higher external law; but He has a most full and superabounding vitality, which first energizes within the Divinity, and then diffuses itself and becomes the origin of all other life and activity. The Divine Life is not as the life of the plant or the sentient life of the animal, but it is the highest kind, spiritual, intellectual; and from this intellectual life proceed all material substances and all forces. Even our poor intelligence operates on external matter, and is, in a modified sense, creative; much more is this the case with God. The divine life is the breath of our nostrils (Job. xxvii. 3) in the natural order; and a more special communication of it is our life in the supernatural order. A spontaneous, irresistible drawing towards life is a sign that it is vigorous in you. Take delight in God, long after Him, try to say “My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God” (Ps. lxxxiii. 2).

II. Consider the excellence of this divine life in God. It is spiritual and intellectual. “The cognition of the Divine Essence is the food and drink of the Word” (St. Clem. Alexand.). The divine life is full of purity and sanctity and virtue of all kinds. It is most peaceful, happy, tranquil and content. It is perfectly free, independent, and sovereign. It is the first source and the last term of the perfection of all created natural and supernatural life. It is an inconceivably perfect life beyond all powers of description. God communicates Himself to you in divers ways, and with Himself His life. This takes place through Our Lord, through His teaching, His Church, His grace, His Sacraments; and it is accomplished so perfectly that we may become able to say, “I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. ii. 20). Then all the aforesaid noble qualities of the divine life become realized in us. Thank God for these wonders, and for thus elevating you above the natural creation and above your natural capacities.

III. God in Jesus Christ becomes our life (John xiv. 6). We sorely need this life. Compare human life with the divine. “Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries; who cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed, and fleeth as a shadow, and never continueth in the same state” (Job. xiv. 1, 2). Our life begins in nakedness and feebleness and tears, and in original sin; it continues in labours and sorrows, in fears and disappointments, in perversity, folly and sin; it ends in weariness and failure, in humiliating decay, or in premature catastrophe. It is seldom successful, generally pitiful, and often is considered not worth living. There is only one thing that will elevate it, that will lend it dignity, that will make it endurable and useful; and that thing is the infusion of the supernatural life of God. The universal cry of human nature is, “Unhappy man that I am! who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. vii. 24). Your life is worth nothing to yourself or to others unless God be with you. This is the greatest truth of moral and social science and the secret of your happiness. Do not wait to learn it by sad experience, but be wise in time.

18. The Truth of God

 

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Truth of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Truth of God

I. The first kind of truth to be considered is metaphysical truth, or truth of essence, or truth of nature. We assert this of a being when we say that it is true to its nature; and we mean thereby that it possesses all the qualities that belong to its nature, and that it is a full and complete member of its class. This kind of truth God possesses eminently, as having all the perfections proper to the Infinite God. He possesses spirituality, immortality, eternity, omnipotence, independence. All that we can conceive of good qualities and perfections He has in an infinite degree. All that His infinite intelligence can conceive in the way of perfection He possesses. He is true to Himself as God. Further, God not only has, but He is this perfect transcendent truth. For all that is in Him is Himself. There is no division in Him of qualities as distinct from His being. The infinity and the goodness of God are God Himself: and so the truth of God is God. You should be like God as possessing all the truth of your being, all the perfection and virtue which God has decreed to be proper to human nature. If you are sensual, worldly, proud, you are not true to the ideal of perfect man as it exists in God and is manifested in Jesus Christ. Adore the truth of God and cultivate it in yourself.

II. A second kind of truth is attributed to God as being the only solid and perfect reality, the only necessary and abiding substance. Compared with His reality, man and all creatures are mere nothingness. “All nations are before Him as if they had no being at all, and all are counted to Him as nothing and vanity” (Isa. xl. 19). Vanity is that which has no substance, which cannot be grasped, does not satisfy, does not sustain, produces no fruit. Such is the whole of creation. It proceeds in some incomprehensible way out of nothingness, it is supported by the breath of God, without Him it would sink back into nonentity. “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the grass. The grass is withered and the flower thereof is fallen away, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Peter i. 24, 25). And again, life “is a vapour which appeareth for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away” (James iv. 15). Adore God as the sole reality that abides. Do not be so shortsighted as to spend all your energies and set all your hopes on shadows unsubstantial and transient. “How long will you be dull of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after lies?” (Ps. iv. 3).

III. There is a third kind of truth or rather truthfulness. It is a quality of the intelligence, and consists in ideas being conformable to realities. God sees all truth in Himself, and all creatures as they really are, without any deception. This knowledge is His truth; it is the perfect correspondence of subject with object; and He is Himself this truth. Further, His words to us correspond to the ideas of the divine mind; they convey truth to us far more certainly than any words of men, any evidence of our senses, any conclusions or any prejudged opinions of our minds. These words of God are not merely true, they are the truth; and though heaven and earth pass away, they will never pass away. So perfect is this veracity of God that the Apostle comparing us with Him says, “God is true and every man a liar” (Rom. iii. 4). Worship God as the Supreme Truth. In homage to Him cultivate truth in all its forms. Let no doubts or sophisms turn you from the most absolute reliance on the word of God; be careful not to overlay it with your own false ideas and attribute divine veracity to them. Strive for true views of all things; and confess the truth without timidity or compromise.