‘God is love’
'God is love', St John wondrously proclaims in his first letter. This message is truly beautiful but we must never fall into the trap of seeing it for nothing more than its senimental value. Scripture is never sentimental nor superficial and we must always look deeper into what scripture is saying. When St John tells us 'God is love' he is not trying comfort us with empty words but he is giving us an insight into the very nature of God. God is love -- the Holy Trinity, the three distinct persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are made one God by a perfect union of love. The very essence of God is love and since before time they have existed in a perfect communion of love. 'Love comes from God', and so God's love is perfect love as it is from the love of God that we ourselves are able to love. It is impossible for us to measure or fully understand the love of God because the human love we have springs forth from God's love and is a reflection of it. It is important, therefore, to try to understand God's love that we may try to bring the love and relationships we have to perfection. God's love has four characteristics. His love is total, complete. God does not hold back His love but gives it away in its fulness. The Holy Trinity are united to one another because of the totality of their love. God's love is free -- no one can be forced to love. Love has to spring forth naturally, from one person to another, from one heart to another. Love is a choice, and even the Holy Trinity choose to love one another. God's love is faithful -- God never betrays His love but the Trinity always remain faithful to the communion of love they have with each other. This is not to say they cannot love anything or anyone else, but that they never do anything to betray the bond of love they share. The final characteristic of God's love is fruitfulness. When we love perfectly it inflames our hearts and makes us want to love more and it is even moreso with God. And it is this characteristic in which we find the very meaning of our existence. Before all time the Holy Trinity existed in their perfect bond of love and since before time They have yearned to spread that love, to share it. Their love has demanded to be fruitful. And so God created the whole universe. He created time and space, light and the planets. He created the earth and all her creatures. Why? For Adam. For man. He had His angels to serve him and to carry out His will. He had need neither for creation nor for man. He had no need; He had desire. He did not need Adam. He wanted Adam. Our creation truly is the greatest love story ever told; our all-powerful God is ruler of everything and yet a slave to love. We were created because the love of God demanded it; the love of God demanded to be spread, to be shared, and so God created us and made us stewards of creation that we may share in his love. He loves us and so He wants us not to be miserable or cast down but joyful and happy. We find that joy, our true joy, in love of Him because loving him is the very reason we were created. But the love story does not stop there. Just as God's love demanded to be shared, God knew that Adam too would want to share the love and joy he experienced in God, and so God created Eve. God had given Adam all of creation and yet still that was not enough and so God created Eve, that together they might share in God's love. And God blessed their love and allowed them to be fruitful, giving them offspring that their love might bear fruit. Through the ages, then, God's love has been passed down from generation to generation through the love of man and wife and their children, that through the family the world might share in God's love. Indeed in all our relationships we must try to imitate divine love but God intended the conjugal love to show perfectly the bond of love shared by the Holy Trinity. This is the order set by God and in it is found our true joy. In all things we must search for that order which comes from God for in the order of God we find His love for us, and in His love for us we find that true joy - the joy of being truly part of His creation, made perfect in his love.
