Catholic Dads

This Tremendous Lover

May 17th, 2009

This was recommended to me by a priest shortly after my “reversion” back to Catholicism. I had asked him what the best Catholic book was that could approach what C. S. Lewis did in Mere Christianity. He’s passed away now, and I don’t think I ever thanked him for pointing this out to me. Just in case you don’t know it already Father C – thank you.

On Membership in Christ and on Christian Charity:

“… No matter what we do, unless we do it in the love of God, it profits us nothing. God wants our love, He will be satisfied with nothing else. That is what He principally looks for in our works. The things we do or achieve are not of primary value to God, for he can create them by a mere thought; or with just as much ease He can raise up other free agents to do what we do. But the love of our hearts is something unique, something no one else can give Him. True, He could create other hearts to love Him, but once He has created us and given us free will, the love of our particular heart is something unique and in a way irreplaceable. In any case, it is not for His own sake that He wants our love, but because He desires to make us happy with Him forever, and He can only do that if we are in love with Him ……

There is only one source of true happiness in this life or in the next, and that is to love and to be loved. Knowledge that does not lead to love is worse than vain and sterile. It is of course quite true that love expresses itself in many ways, and it is true that its reality can be questioned if it does not seek expression in some way; but for all that, it is love, and love alone, that matters. St. Paul and all the saints knew that; our Lady knew that; our Lord knows that, and God Himself knows it and tells it to us in the Scripture. I have loved thee with an everlasting love (Jer xxxi, 3). My son, give me thy heart (Prov xxiii, 26). Love is the culmination of the law (Rom xiii, 10).”

“Let it be noted here that charity does not compel us to like people, but to love them. And love is an act of the will wishing one well. Further what passes for fraternal charity is often not really Christian. Modern civilization is full of a humanitarianism which is not Christian charity, for its motive is not the love of God. It may be a love of man, though it is more often a love of management. Whatever be its motive, unless it be derived from the love of God, it profiteth nothing. It is on this point that many Catholics – even many Catholic religious – make a fatal mistake that renders much of their works for their neighbor sterile and unprofitable; for their motives are human. To them can be applied that threefold warning of our Lord: Amen, I say unto you, they have received their reward. Still we must not be too general in our condemnation, for when a man works according to what he believes to be his duty, God will not fail to have compassion on him, and will give him the grace to rectify his outlook. But for a healthy Christian life, all a man’s work must be done with God, for God, and in God; the love of God is at once its source, its end, and its principal value.

For the whole spiritual life is a love affair with God, and if that expression has associations that are out of place here, it is because of the abuse of it, not because of its proper use …”

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