Deficiency, negligence and want
When one looks to mankind in every age of history, he sees deficiency, negligence and want–within every nation, hierarchy of power and community–in varying degrees.
We know what perpetuates this cycle of ugliness because it rests on a truth of our fallen human nature–sin.
By definition, sin is:
1. “an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience,” and
2. a “failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods” (CCC, 1849).
It also happens to be an offense against God (CCC, 1850).
But if God is so detached from mankind, how can He be so offended?
And if He allows all kinds of evil and injustice, why bother to believe in Him at all?
Something more
God looks at each one of us, and sees something more. It is inconceivable to the human mind that love can be without condition, freely given, and absolutely undeserved.
Yet that is exactly what it is.
If we do something good for God, He cannot love us more than if we were murdering someone in the street.
This is not to say He is always pleased with us, but our conduct does not affect the amount of love He has for us–because God wants to free us all from the different prisons of our own making.
A cup overflowing
St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897) wrote in her autobiography that one of her sisters taught her at an early age that God seeks to fill us with His love, but each person’s soul is like a vessel filled with water; it can only hold so much.
God fills us all to the top, but some can hold more “water” than others because of our own resistance to His love.
If a soul holds just a minute amount of “water”, like a physician, God can only do a limited amount of healing in that soul, yet His love never abandons or condemns it.
“He does not break the crushed reed, nor quench the wavering flame” (Isa 42:3, JB).
When a person does something with love, his own soul expands, and God’s grace heals a greater portion of his soul. This is an ongoing process that fluidly waxes (or wanes) throughout every person’s lifespan, until the size of the vessel is fixed permanently at his death.
This is why there are greater and lesser saints in heaven; some have allowed God’s grace to expand the “vessel” of their souls to hold God’s healing mercy that can be compared to the size of an ocean.
And even they cannot hold the entirety of God’s grace–for it is infinite.
Sons and daughters
How does one attain such a feat in life?
By recognizing that we are not defined by our sins.
And by seeing ourselves as we really are: sons and daughters of The Most High God.
And that anyone who is made alive again by Christ is a new creation (2 Cor 5:17).
How does one go about being made alive again? By reconciling himself with God through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
And by beginning again with Christ instead of without Him.
“Steel Magnolias”
Though we are easily crushed and unfaithful, God is forever faithful. He brings true justice, and will […]”neither waver, nor be crushed” […]–even to the point of pouring Himself out for us until our “cups” are overflowing.
Since Jesus in His divinity is outside of time, He is always being poured out for us every day, at every moment, at every Mass in the world.
Though His crucifixion happened within time, His love and saving grace from His sacrifice occurs perpetually outside of it.
This means that:
Though we are fragile, He is strong.
Though we tend towards negligence, He is loving.
Though we fear weakness, He embraced human frailty to be like us in every way except sin.
His love is like the magnolia blossom–vibrant, fragrant, beautiful, sweet and pure white–but as unrelenting and unmovable as steel, providing us with the supernatural strength and courage that props us up in our weaknesses–if only we endeavor to love Him in return.
