In life we need the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (or charity).
We need faith so we can grow to know God and in so doing to grow in love for God. Once we die we no longer need the virtue of faith. After death we will know there is a God and we will know Him. We will stand before Him, Jesus.
If we go to hell we will have no need for hope and love. Dante’s Inferno, part of his Divine Comedy, has a sign at the entrance to Hell:
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here
Hell is the absence of God. Love does not exist in Hell. There is no hope in hell. If I am in hell I know I will be there for eternity. I will have freely chosen hell.
If we are in purgatory we still need hope and love. We need hope because we know we love God and we will be with Him for eternity after we have been purified. That is, after we have lost all attachments to created things; after we have become perfect love just as God is. We are not God. We are still creatures but God purifies us with His love until we love as He loves.
But I’m still stuck here on earth. I am still living my life. I have been growing in knowledge of God through the teachings of the Church, through Sacred Scripture, through prayer and through my encounters with God in everyday life.
I have been nurturing, cultivating the virtue of hope. I’m longing to be with Him in heaven. Why am I struggling in this life? Why doesn’t God just take me?
Because we can’t force our timeline on Him.
Besides, I’m not nearly close to loving perfectly. If I don’t perfect it before I die I will have to perfect it after I die. How do I go about perfecting this love?
Before writing any more about learning to love perfectly I have to state clearly, I can’t begin to claim I am practicing what I preach, so to speak.
If I were to die today I hope I will be sent to purgatory where I may take a long time learning how to love perfectly.
Back to the essay.
Love/Charity
Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. [CCC 1822]
While looking in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC, for my essay on hope I came across this:
The fourth commandment illuminates other relationships in society. In our brothers and sisters we see the children of our parents; in our cousins, the descendants of our ancestors; in our fellow citizens, the children of our country; in the baptized, the children of our mother the Church; in every human person, a son or daughter of the One who wants to be called “our Father.” In this way our relationships with our neighbors are recognized as personal in character. The neighbor is not a “unit” in the human collective; he is “someone” who by his known origins deserves particular attention and respect. [CCC 2212]
So we are told we must not just see our neighbor as merely a unique person but we have to see him as one with us in all of humanity.
Whatever happened to The Beatles’ simple song about love?
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
Temporal vs. Eternal
The first two theological virtues are temporal in that they are necessary for only a time.
How long does faith last? That depends on how long you live.
How long does hope last? After death it depends on if you are in hell, where it ceases to exist, or you are in purgatory which will be for an unknown finite period of time.
How long does love last? Again, if you are in hell, it ceases to exist. In purgatory and then Heaven, love lasts for an eternity.
Is love just a feeling?
When we are young our first feelings of love are hopefully for our parents. We depend on them for everything. We feel safe and protected. Everything is provided for us. We come to understand they love us and in return we love them.
As we grow we begin to form relationships with others. We become friends with others we like. We avoid those we do not like.
Eventually we come to an age where we start to look at others as not just friends but we begin to feel the beginnings of romantic attraction, romantic love. We start to identify these as feelings of love for another person. In many cases these feelings turn into a marriage.
Love is a decision!
Ellen and I have been married for over fifty years. Over forty years ago we made a Marriage Encounter Weekend. During that weekend we listened to talks given by other married couples and a priest. One of the things we were told is love is not just a feeling. It is a decision.
I have come to understand that definition and I agree with it. With over fifty years of married life we have each made many decisions to love each other that have kept us together.
Active Virtues vs. Passive Virtues
I think of the virtues of faith and hope as passive in nature. This is probably more the case for hope than faith. Still, neither is as active as love.
I can look back on my life and see much more success with growing in the virtues of faith and hope. I have written about each of them. I can recognize times in my life when I was aware of growth in both of those virtues. Love is a bit more difficult. Love takes a real commitment to develop.
While I have really enjoyed the music of The Beatles from my adolescent years on through my senior years some of those songs and images from the 60’s almost make a mockery of love. All you need is love is quite trite.
How easy it is to let the words “I love you” roll off the tongue. How often are those words said when the true meaning is not “Love”.
Earlier I gave the catechism’s statement on charity as “we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.”
Easy to say in a superficial way. Then the catechism hits us with this:
Jesus makes charity the new commandment. By loving his own “to the end,” he makes manifest the Father’s love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” And again: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” [CCC 1823]
Jesus commands us to “love one another as I have loved you.”
Boy, do I feel inadequate.
And then we get this:
Christ died out of love for us, while we were still “enemies.” The Lord asks us to love as he does, even our enemies, to make ourselves the neighbor of those farthest away, and to love children and the poor as Christ himself.… [CCC 1825]
It is becoming pretty clear that, at the very least, learning to love as God loves is a lifetime of work. In fact, for most of us a lifetime won’t be enough. Thank God for purgatory.
Thank God also for St. Ignatius of Loyola and his The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, which end with the Contemplation to Attain the Love of God.
We have always had the love of God so there is no need to “obtain” His love. However, we are commanded to love as God loves. We need to “attain” that ability to love as He loves. This contemplation gives us an approach for attaining His love.
The Contemplation as adapted by Fr. Joseph A. Tetlow, S.J. in his Choosing Christ In the World is in an addendum at the end of this post for those who would like to try it.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
How simple they made it sound. That is how the world wants to see it. Words. Talk. That is how it would be if we didn’t have our fallen nature. We would love as God loves.
If God loved as we love, we would be lost for eternity. Thankfully, God does not love as we love.
Romans 5:12, 17–19
12Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned—
17If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.
19For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
God loves all of creation unconditionally. God’s love maintains all of creation.
God commands that we love one another as He has loved us. God would never command something that could not be attained. Therefore, it can be attained. Those who attain it in this life we call the canonized saints. Those who attain it in purgatory make up the vast majority of saints in heaven.
St. Ignatius of Loyola gave us a tool we can use to help us attain the love of God. Take advantage of it.
I would like to achieve this in this life. However, knowing me, I expect it to take longer than that. Thankfully, the gift of Faith that God gave me has helped me to know Him and to love Him and to know that He loves me unconditionally. I can never lose His love, but I can freely and deliberately reject it.
The gift of Hope He has given me helps me to know that as long as I stay in His grace, accepting His love, I have more than my lifetime to attain His love.
I was created in His image and likeness as was each and every one of us. I hope to live up to that.
The gift of His love sustains me and keeps me trying to be the man I was created to be.
August 16, 2024
© 2024 Greg Gillen
Image Credit/Crucifixion/Paolo Uccello/WikiArt
All you need is love/The Beatles/John Lennon and credited to Lennon and McCartney
Scripture/Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition
The Contemplation for Learning to Love like God/The Suscipe/Choosing Christ In the World/The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius/Adapted by Joseph A. Tetlow, S.J.
Contemplation to Attain the Love of God/The Suscipe/The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius/Translation by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (I prefer this translation of the Suscipe rather than the adaptation used by Fr. Tetlow. I present Fr. Tetlow’s at the end of the addendum.)
Fr. Tetlow adapted the contemplation so it would be better understood by modern retreatants. He also replaced “Attain” with “Learning”.
The contemplation is presented in a way that invites the person praying to pray it more than once. (For those who are not familiar with Ignatian prayer, contemplation is praying with our imagination. When we contemplate a gospel passage we use our imagination to place ourselves in the passage. We use our senses to observe what is going on. We feel the warmth of the sun or the cold and wet during a storm on the sea. We feel Christ’s pain during His passion. We engage those in the passage in conversation. Fr. Tetlow uses the word fantasy instead of imagination.)
Remember two things about love: First, love is act, not talk; it shows itself in the deed done, not simply in words spoken. Second, love works itself out in mutual sharing, so that the lover always gives to and receives from the beloved-everything: gifts, money, convictions, honors, position.
I begin by asking the Lord God to let me become aware of myself in the divine presence, and I offer myself to God.
Then I use my fantasy. I imagine that I am standing before the throne of God, and all around me I see saints and martyrs, angels and powers and dominions. They all smile at me and seem to recommend me to God the Lord.
Then I ask God for what I want right now. I want to have an intimate understanding of myself and my life as gift, and all my world as gift, so that I will be incandescent with gratitude, and then go beyond that to love the Giver of all this, who loves me vastly in deed and in sharing.
Now, I divide my consideration of all God’s gifts and giving into four parts:
FIRST PART
I just run through my mind all the splendors of the created world. I wonder at the vast plains and mountains and the tiny wildflower. I let my mind run among the stars and planets, and then delve into the tiniest atom with its elegant particles and forces. I remember that God has created and does create all humankind, and that God has redeemed and does redeem all peoples. And I remember how much God gives me in all this.
I consider this, and ponder it, letting my heart go out to God. The Lord has done much for me. He lavishes on me life, light, understanding, desiring, free choice, and the summons to love and to be loved. Most astonishing of all, God plainly wants to and does communicate God’s Self to me.
Then I think about my own case, about my own life history and my own self. I am being created by this great Lord to live and function according to gifts coming from God’s Self.
How am I to love in return? What makes sense except to do as God does, to give as God gives? What would be right except to offer all that I am and all that I have?
So I say the Suscipe below, putting my whole mind and strength into the offering and the petition.
Suscipe
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess.
You have given all to me. To You, O Lord, I return it.
All is Yours, dispose of it wholly according to Your will.
Give me Your love and Your grace, for this is sufficient for me.
At the end of each time of prayer that I spend in this Contemplation, I reflect a moment and then speak with God my Lord. And end with the Our Father.
SECOND PART
I look at all the varieties of creatures on the earth and in space and let it come home to me that God continues creating them and dwells within them. Through eons and eons, God faithfully stayed present to each kind of living thing, energizing by the divine presence through all the centuries the genetic codes that opened each phylum to its proper evolution. At this very moment, God gives each order and kind of creature what God can give it: To rocks, weight and solidness and presence. To plants, affinity for light and an inward impulse to grow and to mature authentically according to its kind. To animals, sight and smell and feeling, and the enormous range of impulses and instincts that move herds to migrate and butterflies to sip nectar from flowers. All of that God sustains.
Then I consider and ponder this, that God remains present at every moment to every creature. God stays there always, sustaining existence and life and reflection. For at the core of the core of all creation flames the creative love of God, summoning out of chaos and nothingness all that exists and lives and comprehends.
Finally, I think about my own case. I turn to myself and ask what this means to me?
God present at my conception. God present at my birth and my growth into infancy. God faithful to me as I came to the use of reason and to freedom. God loyal to me who committed myself to be a soldier of Christ, and through my other permanent commitments. All along, the energies of God rising through mine, through digestion and gesture and muscle growth and seeing and interpreting. God the ground of my being. God the core of myself.
So I wonder what I ought to do and offer to God, now. And I say with all my heart the Suscipe below.
Suscipe
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess.
You have given all to me. To You, O Lord, I return it.
All is Yours, dispose of it wholly according to Your will.
Give me Your love and Your grace, for this is sufficient for me.
At the end of each time of prayer that I spend in this Contemplation, I reflect a moment and then speak with God my Lord. And end with the Our Father.
THIRD PART
I consider that God, to use St. Peter’s words, works busily in all creation. I use a metaphor here, of course, but I can see that if God attends to each and every creature and keeps shaping instincts and consciences and raising the energies that form our weather and our interactions, then I make a lot of sense when I say that God works busily. I let my mind run through all created things: the far reaches of space, our own galaxy, the globe of the earth, imagining how God labors to keep their magnificent order and functioning. Then I enter into living things, perhaps into individual birds or animals and individual persons, imagining how God keeps nerves crackling and bone marrow producing blood, and the like. I might consider a tiny little bug or flower and imagine how many other living and nonliving things conspired to bring it to life and sustain it.
I consider this and ponder it, letting my heart go out to God. How great God is! How full of life, and how eager to have others exist, particularly other rational creatures. God labors and hopes and keeps sustaining us even when we destroy.
Then I think about my own case, about my own life history and my own self. How did God have to labor to keep me alive? To keep me growing and learning and believing and hoping? Were there no times when I realized that God was working in me? for me?
So I say the Suscipe below, putting my whole mind and strength into the offering and the petition.
Suscipe
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess.
You have given all to me. To You, O Lord, I return it.
All is Yours, dispose of it wholly according to Your will.
Give me Your love and Your grace, for this is sufficient for me.
At the end of each time of prayer that I spend in this Contemplation, I reflect a moment and then speak with God my Lord. And end with the Our Father.
FOURTH PART
I consider that all the good that I see and know comes to be as a share in the divine good. That is, all power echoes the divine power whose action elicited it from chaos. All beauty mirrors the divine beauty and comes from it in the first place the way an image in a mirror comes from the Origin. All holiness on earth is the fragrance of God present in and with all of us. And so through justice, goodness, mercy, understanding, compassion.
Then I consider this, and ponder it, letting my heart go out to God who pours out His own Self and all His infinity of gifts.
And I think about my own case, about how my own gifts are a share, an effulgence, of God my Creator and Lord. I am like a mirror reflecting the sun. I am like a leaf’s chlorophyll, moving excitedly and warmly with the sun’s excited and warm light.
All that I am and all that I have are a participation in God.
So I say the Suscipe below, putting my whole mind and strength into the offering and the petition.
Suscipe
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess.
You have given all to me. To You, O Lord, I return it.
All is Yours, dispose of it wholly according to Your will.
Give me Your love and Your grace, for this is sufficient for me.
At the end of each time of prayer that I spend in this Contemplation, I reflect a moment and then speak with God my Lord. And end with the Our Father.
For those who would like to try the Suscipe adaptation by Fr. Tetlow I present it here:
Accept, O Lord, and treat as Your own
my liberty, my understanding,
my memory – all of my decisions and
my freedom to choose.
All that I am and all that I have
You gave and give to start;
now I turn and return all to You,
looking to find Your hopes and will in all.
Keep giving me Your holy love,
Hold on me Your life-giving gaze,
and I neither need nor want anything else.
