Objective truth series – Reflection #22
In our last several reflections we have been considering focusing more and more on our eternal goal, the work of our lives, namely, the salvation of our souls. We penetrated more deeply what it really means to save our souls—to see the Beatific Vision!
The emptiness of this world is easy to see especially when we compare this world to the delights of heaven. We can easily conclude that to see God is worth all the efforts we can make. Certainly as God gives us a greater desire for heaven, He increases our love for Him. Yet, there is another aspect of our love of God which emerges especially when we see the world getting more godless every day, namely, the hunger and desire we have to see God loved. St. Therese of Lisieux wrote in a prayer she composed to the Holy Face, “I am consumed with the desire to love Thee and make Thee loved by all men.”
When we consider how there is so much craziness going on around us in the world, we see the huge apparent sprint of the evil globalists as they try to get more control of everything with each new day. Furthermore, these globalists have a clear agenda to erase God and His Commandments from the face of the earth. It is so tempting to only consider our own current dangers and to get anxious about what will happen to us. However, we must remind ourselves that we are in God’s Providential Hands and there is much consolation in this truth. Indeed, we also know that God is allowing these events in order to perfect our souls.
And yet, our focus should naturally turn from ourselves, to the innumerable insults that are hurled against God, His Church, His Blessed Mother, and His Saints. We can see by the blatant attacks of the enemy, that God is so hated in these neo-pagan times of this great apostasy. Our hearts ache out of love for God and a desire to console Him. We should remember that just devotedly doing our duty-of-state with love for God, is a very important way to give Him glory and console Him.
In this way, too, we begin the life of self-forgetfulness. The simple focus on wanting to please God and work for His Glory, not only increases our love for Him, but also is God’s means to increase His Divine Friendship in our souls. God is great and merciful to shower such undeserved goodness on His poor creatures!
“He must increase: but I must decrease.” [St. John 3:30] These words of St. John the Baptist apply to us as we strive to do all we can for the greater honor and glory of God and to show Him all our love. But, more than this, is that this decreasing of ourselves in our own view of ourselves, naturally brings us lower and lower until we see our utter nothingness. This nothingness does not disturb us because we see it as our natural place. As Our Lord told St. Catherine of Sienna, “You are she who is not and I am He Who is.” We are nothing and God is our all.
When we get caught up in our daily service of God and our neighbor out of love for God, our lives are busy working for God and our neighbor. We may find ourselves trying to help our neighbor in many ways. Some examples may be: trying to keep up our neighbor’s morale in these times when irrational fears are being pushed on everyone; trying to keep him informed when we are surrounded by false news; trying to convert others back to the pre-Vatican II Faith; or teaching others about the traditional uncompromising Faith which they have never heard about [seeing that we are now 56 years post Vatican II]. “The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few.” [St. Matt. 9:37]
With so much work to do for God’s Glory and to show Him our love, there really is no time or concern to think about ourselves. We are glad to do all we can for God and spend ourselves in His service. This is what it means to let our lives be consumed in the love of God. What a mercy of God to let us serve Him and He accepts our poor service!
Besides such good works to our neighbor for love of God, we’ll find that we love spending time in prayer— adoring God; telling Him our sorrow for our own sins and the sins of the hateful world; telling Him over and over again that we love Him; and thanking Him for all His Goodness and Mercies He has shown to us.
God’s sculpturing of our souls slowly over time does bring many changes in our souls which includes the soul becoming more selfless. He works patiently on us and if we are docile, His chiseling will not seem painful to us. We can sense that He is steadily chipping away our selfishness and we naturally find that we want to do things for Him more because we love Him more and more. In addition, as we see things in the world falling apart around us, and because we know that we do not in any way deserve God’s wonderful mercies that He has showered upon us, our hearts cannot help counting our blessings often. How could gratitude not grow with each passing day? We want to do something for Him to thank Him. We want to share our blessings with other souls! A consuming need to love God takes over and the desire to see Him loved is part of this.
With grateful hearts, may God let us burn in the fire of the consummation of His Love! This is how Divine Friendship works— to spread His Glory, to be spent in His service, and to care about nothing else than Him! Oh, if we could truly say like St. Paul, “And I live, now not I: but Christ liveth in me.” [Gal. 2:20]—with heartfelt pangs of love for God we would want to say something like the following:
For God alone must be my goal,
Only He can full-please a soul,
Focusing on myself would be,
Like living a lie—death to me.
To keep my focus on God entire
Brings on love and my soul’s desire
To become selfless, melting flame
To make of God, my only aim.
This fits His plan for souls that see,
Solely for Him should the soul be,
The lifetime goal, the soul’s one end
To have Him, as a Divine Friend.
With things all ‘round falling apart,
Thus, to tear, God out of each heart,
The devil spreads hatred so wide,
Ne’er wanting souls, to be God’s bride.
Fret then, just distracting the soul,
From the purpose of man’s true role,
Intimate union with The Spouse,
Evil seeks this Friendship to douse.
The Devil sows then fears and dread
Wanting souls to hate God instead
‘Gainst love of God, and true good deeds
He tempts men to desire false “needs”
So bitter hatred fills the air
And each day more fall to despair
Insults to God are hurled galore
Than seemingly ever before
Our souls ache to repair these crimes
The wretched evils of our times,
To give God the glory— His due,
Knowing He, is loved, by so few.
And to help poor folks so confused
Who are attacked and ill-used
Who search for truth, so hard to find
They’re led like sheep to keep them blind.
Out of love we help our neighbor,
Gladly for God do we labor,
For Him our life tirelessly spend,
Knowing by this we love our Friend.
Working hard ‘til our eyes grow dim,
Doing all out of love for Him,
Wanting nothing than be consumed,
Giving all until we’re entombed.
If we like St. Paul can self-forget
We can grow more in love yet
With our dear Lord, Our Spouse Divine,
E’er adoring the Mystic Vine!