Divine Love

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Wednesday, 13 March 2013 : 4th Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is closely linked and intertwined with God the Father, our Creator. Together with the Holy Spirit, the third part of the Trinity, they form the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Many would misinterpret this, including the Jews at the time, that it means there are 3 Gods at the same time, and that Christians worship 3 Gods, and therefore polytheistic.

No, this is simply not the case, for The Three members of the Holy Trinity are indeed three distinct members, not the same from each other, and distinctively different between the three of them, but yet, at the same time, are also One, and indivisible. This is the mystery of the Holy Trinity, that God who is present in 3 Godheads of the Father Creator, the Son who is the Messiah and the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit the Advocate, are at the same time distinct as they are one. They are one because they are bound by the link that is immemorial and infinite in nature, that is perfect and divine love.

For Jesus Christ as the Son loves the Father perfectly, and so does the Father loves the Son in the same way, and the nature of this relationship to the Holy Spirit is none other but the same as well. And the Son does the will of the Father, because He obeys the Father, and even unto death, as our Lord Jesus Christ died for us on Calvary, on the cross, that we all can be saved, from death, and from sin.

Jesus Christ our Saviour, is the Word of God, which the Father had sent down to us, to be like us, sinful man, that he can teach all of us, as the Word, the Words of God, the love of God, and the true meanings of God’s commandments, that is love, and the very nature of God Himself, that is love, mercy, and compassion. He showed God’s teachings through His own examples, and through His ultimate dedication to the cause of the Lord. That is to die on the cross on Calvary, to give Himself up as the worthy sacrifice for all our sins. For He brought into Himself the sins of all men, and the contrite hearts of all those who believed in God, and became the worthy sacrifice, saving mankind from being doomed due to their rebellion against God.

Christ had suffered, and He had died on the Cross, and then he too had risen from the dead, and in glory He returned to the Father and left this world at the hands of His disciples, who continued to propagate His mission and His words, throughout generations, throughout many centuries and millennia, through good and hard times, through bountiful harvests of faith and persecution of the martyrs and the faithful in God, to all of us today who belong in God’s Church, which He established through Peter.

The Church today is the last and only bastion of truth, love, and light in this world increasingly eaten up by evil forces of consumerism, hedonism, secularism, and atheism. Many had abandoned God in search of temporary and worldly pleasures and temptations, and left God for their own reasons and their own ideas, and even thinking that they need no God, even though it’s the very God who had come down to us, in order to build a bridge between us and the Lord who created us, that we are finally able to return to God, through Christ’s death on the cross, His ultimate sacrifice, for all of us.

Our Church had been the greatest charitable body in the world, and had done much to help the poor and the suffering, and there are of course still much more that we can do to help, even every one of us, we can all contribute more to help those least and the weakest in our society. Let us all help the Church in its mission, help all who are involved in serving the weak, the poor, the ostracised, and the persecuted ones. Let us also of course strive to spread God’s Good News and message of love to all, especially those who had rejected Him, and those who even persecuted God’s holy people.

For Christ, the Son of God, will come to judge His people again at the end of time, at His Second Coming, which time and place we do not know about. But He always reminds us to be vigilant, and to be awake, lest we are caught unawares. He will judge those who had done acts of love, for one another, and for God, worthy, and worthy to join Him in eternal bliss of heaven. And to those whom had failed to love, those who failed to forgive and those who had forsaken Him, He will reject and drive away from His presence.

Let us not worry, since if we do what is good, God is on our side. Continue doing acts of love, mercy, and compassion, and begin to do charitable acts starting from small, little things we can help, like not refusing to help a beggar, and tried to spare a coin for them, and also to help one another in the society, and to be aware of the plight of our fellow brothers and sisters, that we will all remain strong, in God’s love.

Help one another to grow in faith, hope, and love, the three cardinal virtues of life. Let us pray that our faith in God will remain strong, that our hope in Him and mankind will be ever present, and be light to those who despair, and let our love burn within us, filled with God’s love, to show God’s love to all mankind, and to all the nations, that those who have yet bend their knees before the God who loves them and gave His life for them, will follow. Amen.

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Wednesday, 6 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

God our Father, had given the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel through Moses. These laws were meant to be the guidelines of how the people of God should live. The prophets too came over the centuries, during and after the times of the kingdom of Israel, to preach and explain about the Law, and at the same time proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, who will set all things right and save the world.

That Messiah is Christ, who came into the world, the divine Word of God, becoming a humble man, born through the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem. He came indeed not to destroy or displace the Law of God. Rather, He came to fulfill it, to purify it, to make sure that indeed the Law is for man so that they can orientate themselves and love God and their fellow brethren, in what Christ has taught the disciples, that is the two main Commandments of Love, that is to love God with all our being, and to love our fellow men as much as we love ourselves.

Such is the perfection of the Law that God had first given to the people of Israel, and then Christ had spread throughout the world as the Universal Law of love. In obeying and living out this Law, it is how we please the Lord, who will see us as worthy of Him. No more excessive laws and rites that we must follow, such as the 613 laws of the Jewish Law, which evolved from the laws that God has told Moses while he was on the Mount Horeb, the mountain of God.

It may seem that the commandments of love are easy to be done. After all there are only two of them is it not? No! In fact, these two are the hardest ones to be one. Because, it is never easy to love God and our fellow mankind. To truly love God is to spend our time for Him, to listen to Him, through our constant prayers, and to do His will, which is of course, linked to loving mankind, as when we do good deeds to our brethren, we show our sincere love for God. Love for God cannot be just with words and all prayers. These devotions and prayers are indeed important, but without a concrete action to live our faith, and our love, we are nothing but empty husks without love.

God wants to embrace all of us, no matter how broken we are, and how sinful we are. Better for us to be ugly and broken outside, but with the love of God inside us, waiting to break free, rather than being beautiful outside, and empty and dark inside. Lucifer the lightbringer too were once very beautiful and amazing, but inside, he has a dark pride, the pride that brought down many, angels and man alike, into the rebellion against God.

Because we are so rebellious, especially you all should know about the long story of the Israelites since their delivery from Egypt all the way to the time of Jesus, especially in the Book of Kings, how they even slaughter the prophets of the Lord, disobeyed His commandments, and spurned His love. This is why God set those rules as the Law to ensure that the people, tempted as they are, and weak as they are, and vulnerable as they are to sin and evil, through the Law, they can be safeguarded.

Nevertheless, by the time of Jesus, people had lost so much of the ideas and the original intentions of the Law that they ended up being ‘enslaved’ by the very Law that God has given them to safeguard them, through the Pharisees and their strict observation of the rules and the laws. It is through Christ that mankind was once again awakened to the true meaning of the Law, that is a Law of love that is to bring mankind closer to God, and to lead in the reconciliation with God, from the rebellion of our forefathers.

None but Christ Himself, the Messiah, and the Son of God, implemented what He preached, that is to give Himself in greatest form of love to all of us, that is His Sacrifice on the Cross. Through that love He had given us, we now have hope of life in Him, and to be reunited with God, as Christ became our bridge to return back towards the Lord.

We don’t have to give our life as the proof and sign of our love to God, but what matters is, in whatever things we do, even little ones, let us always remember to thank God, either in happiness or sorrow, in good times or bad, and to share the love God has planted in us to our neighbours, that the love will not just stay there, but blossom to let the love of God manifest in others, and therefore the world.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today, let us begin by doing small acts of love in our daily lives, acts of love that can brighten both our days and those around us, especially those who sorrow, and those who have lost hope. Bring to them the warmth of love and hope that is from God, and kindle in them a new fire of God’s love. Let us imitate the example of Christ who had loved us so much so as to give Himself up for our sake, that just as He was glorified on His Resurrection, we too can share in that glory, in the fullness of God’s love and compassion. Amen.