TALKING 'BOUT LOVE

I have used Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen's Divine Intimacy (1963) as a daily devotional for prayer for almost two years. And recently I picked up Dom Gueranger's 15-volume set The Liturgical Year (1841-1879: it was completed 38 years after he began. He died before it was completed) as well. They are both INCREDIBLY rich texts with insights into the liturgy, readings, and the Catholic faith unlike any I've found as yet. My only complaint really is that they both are designed to follow the Scripture calendar of the Church pre-Vatican II. As I also read the Daily Missal for the readings, I was looking for something that coincided with the modern cycle, and think I've found it in the 7-volume set In Conversations With God (1993) by Francis Fernandez.

However, until that set arrives sometime next week, I was reading from Divine Intimacy tonight about Charity, the subject for the last week or so. The following paragraph from #256: The Life of Love really stood out and I found myself re-reading it several times tonight:

Therefore, even in the spiritual life, our first thought should be, not our own perfection, progress, and consolation, but always God's delight, good pleasure, and glory. It is thus that we will serve our own interests better, for he who gives himself to God, completely forgetting himself, draws down upon himself the fullness of divine love. What greater good could come to us than being loved by Infinite Love?

Indeed. And there's the rub. Seeking glory, but not for ourselves, but for God through ourselves. This paragraph spoke to me tonight because for the past several weeks as I've really begin to work on my writing, I've become more self-serving in its pursuit. What began as something I did for God and to bring people to Him, had instead become a way to puff myself up in the eyes of others...in my eyes as well. And not just in my writing but in other areas as well. I have taken my eyes off the "prize" that St. Paul speaks of in Scripture, and am becoming rather slow of foot as a result. Nice little wake up call tonight. Thanks God. The devotional closes with this prayer:

"O Lord, You teach me that without love even the most perfect gifts are as nothing, that charity is the most excellent way, for it leads directly to You. That is why I wish for no science but the science of love, and having given all the substance of my house for love, I count it as nothing. I understand so clearly that love alone can make me pleasing in Your sight, that my sole ambition is to acquire it.

"My occupation is to gather flowers, the flowers of love and sacrifice and to offer them to You, my God, to give You pleasure. I wish to labor for Your love alone--with the sole aim of pleasing You, of consoling Your Sacred Heart, and of saving souls who will love You through eternity.

"O God, my love for You ought to be total, infinite in desire, because You will not give Yourself entirely to a soul unless it gives itself wholly to You. I must not cling to any attachment, nor admit even a single voluntary imperfection, nor refuse You anything. Grant that I may give myself to You in a continual, uninterrupted donation, moment by moment, seeking in all things Your greater glory, always trying to please You, always wanting Your will alone, doing each action with all my heart and with all my love."

Amen.