August 11, 2005> 10:15 AM
the power and meaning of love > 1
I begin my Mertonian quoting this morning from his book Disputed Questions - chapter: The Power and Meaning of Love. I think I've made it no mystery here that I believe Love to be the core of the Christian Life - which means the core and center of Life, period. It IS the identity of God Himself, as it is given to us. Love is to be our identity as well. I have found Thomas Merton's writing on this subject to be profoundly insightful. I said this to a friend not long ago in response to a question about why I was such a Merton "freak": I find Tom to be a great fountain of deep knowledge and wisdom, as if he were acting as a nozzle through which the wisdom of all the things he ever read and meditated on and live out comes flowing out to us. He's a treasure trove.
He captures the heart of things so clearly, like nothing I've ever seen. Here's quote number one...
Man's gratest dignity, his most essential and peculiar power, the most intimate secret of his humanity is his capacity to love. This power in the depths of man's soul stamps him in the image and likeness of God.We are His sons. We are called to be godlike beings, and more than that, we are in some sense called to be "gods." "Is it not written in the law, I said you are gods - and they are gods to whom the words of God are spoken?" (John 10:34-35; Ps. 81:6)
This vocation to be sons of God means that we must learn to love as God Himself loves. For God is love, and it is by loving as He loves that we become perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48). Hence, while being called to govern and cultivate the world that God has given us, we are called at the same time to love everything and everyone in it... It has a dynamic spiritual meaning, for by this love we are called to redeem and transform the world in that same power which raised us Christ from the dead (Eph. 1:17-23). That power is the infinite love of the Father for His Son.
Love then is not only our own salvation and the key to the meaning of our own existence, but it is also the key to the meaning of the entire creation of God. It is true, after all, that our whole life is a participation in that cosmic liturgy of "the love which moves the sun and the other stars."
Now that, people, is some meat to chew on. That bit about us being "gods" will tend, I'm sure, to jump out at people and raise some red flags, especially for those who aren't used to that language. Not that it doesn't come from Scripture or anything - it does. It's being presented here in it's proper context - not that we will become "G"ods with transcendent power, who never began, etc. But this is important and it is ignored because it sounds somehow "blasphemous" - that we have been created by God "in His own Image" - have you thought about that statement? It's huge and powerful and could possibly make your mind explode. And the center of it is Love, the nature of our Father, our own potential nature.
August 11, 2005
> 10:15 AM
038
