How
to Love God – A Lesson Learned from a Child
“And
calling to Him a child, Jesus put him in the midst of them, and said, “Truly I
say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter into
the kingdom of heaven.”
- Mt. 18:2-3
And
the prodigal son “…arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a
distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced and
kissed him.”
-
Lk. 15:20
How does one
love God? The Scriptures tell us to love Him “…with all our heart, with all our
soul, with all our mind and with all our strength.” (Lk. 10:27) So the answer
to the opening question is easy one might say.
Make the Lord your treasure, for “…where your treasure is, there will be
your heart also.” (Mt. 6:21) Make the Lord what He was for St. Paul, that “one
thing” which for us makes all other things pale in importance by comparison. Or
even more graphically, make the Lord that “one thing” which makes all other
things even as refuse, as something foul, or to use St. Paul’s word, as “dung”.
Make Jesus that “one thing” for which I would suffer the loss of all else, for
which I would endure cost, cross, crisis, and challenge in order to gain Him,
embrace Him, commune with Him and “be found in Him.” (Phil. 3:8-9)
But bear with
me. What would that be like? How will I know if for me He is that “one thing”?
Let me tell you a story that decisively answered this question for me – a story
which the Lord used to teach me what it is to love Him. It is a story that for
me even to this day represents a moment of great awakening, a blinding light of
illumination, a “satori” moment of wisdom anointing me and making it abundantly
clear to me what it is to have a heart on fire for Jesus. That moment is even
for me now a powerful memory, a sacramental
memory, a source of Grace – a memory that I pray will prefigure my own passing
from this life, or prefigure what it is like for any Christ-centered Christian
to pass from this life into the arms of God our Father and Mary our Mother.
The moment was many,
many years ago. My youngest son Tim was in the first grade. He was in a soccer
league on Saturday mornings, and not being big on soccer I would rarely if ever
go to his games. Yes I would go if there was nothing else to do, but give me a
good excuse not to go and watch soccer and I would grab at it. And for a fact,
I always had that good reason, one that even a child would understand: Daddy
had to go to work. Saturday morning was when I did tutorial sessions and
make-up classes in critical reading at a nearby Catholic high school. So most
of the time I had my legitimate basis for conflict with Tim’s game schedule.
But there was
one Saturday morning that autumn when my class calendar was clear. A tutorial
had cancelled and no make-up class was necessary. So off I went to see my son.
I arrived at the
park where the soccer fields were. It was a beautiful October morning. The fall
leaves of New England were sparkling in the sun with all the colors of the
rainbow. The morning air was crisp, cool, very much like the clean mountain air
I loved to feel, climbing in the Presidential range of New Hampshire.
The parking lot
was on a high hill overlooking the playing fields below. Leaving my car behind,
I paused at the park entrance to look out over the expanse of trees and fields
before me, not only to locate my son, but also to savor the magnificence of
this day, as well as the beauty of the scene all around me that was such a fit
setting for a soccer game. It was good to be here. More than that, I was glad
to be here, and perhaps coming to my senses, I was so looking forward to seeing
my son, even if he was playing soccer.
As I moved down
the hill and out into the open fields, I could see that Tim’s game was going on
two fields further up, beyond the one I was crossing. His game was in progress,
and his soccer field was filled with first graders running every which way, but
always in reference to an erratically bouncing soccer ball.
The awesome
autumn morning in the park was alive with the happy cheers of parents, and with
the excited and joyful shouts of children at play. All seemed as it should be,
but not really. Though the field was still so far off, I could see in the
distance that one little boy was not moving in reference to the game ball, but
rather running toward me. To do so he was abandoning his position on the field
and literally leaving the game in process.
What was
actually happening did not strike me at first. What I was seeing did seem
highly irregular, yet I was still too far removed from the field of play to
properly size up the situation or discern its meaning. But not for long! When
the little boy was still somewhere around only the width of one playing field
away, it suddenly dawned on me that it was Tim who was running toward me.
Though I had been over the width of two soccer fields away, Tim had seen his
dad, and was now racing to his embrace. Even further, he had left the game in
progress to do so – for a fact, had left all else behind to come to me.
In my startled
awareness of the awesome moment now unfolding , I literally melted inside. An
emotion of overwhelming happiness seized hold of me, and tears of joy filled my
eyes. As my son ran closer and closer I could see that he was radiating with a
smile that went from ear to ear – and all this for the sight of his father at
his soccer game.
When he finally
reached me, he leaped into my outstretched arms and I held him tightly in my
embrace. His face and eyes so alive with that radiant smile stared into mine,
and did so with the happiness of a son seeing a certain sign of his father’s
love.
So there we
were, myself standing there holding my son, and caught up in a moment of
ecstatic love – and all the while, lost to my awareness and my son’s, an active
soccer game going on a field and half away. A child in the embrace of his
father’s love – this is the “one thing” that mattered to my son and to me, all
else forgotten and left behind.
So,
many, many years ago, on a most beautiful October morning in New England, I
learned how to love God from a little child. The child was my own child, my
youngest son who knew only that he loved his dad and was not afraid to show it,
my own child sprinting toward me with arms outstretched and face all alive with
a most radiant smile; my child very much like the children of whom Jesus spoke,
children with the innocence of the angels who love God with a most pure heart
and without guile; children to whom the Kingdom of God belongs because seeking
the Lord is first and foremost, that “one thing” for which they leave the field
of this life and all else to purchase that one pearl worth more than any price
they could ever pay. (Mt. 6:33; Mt. 13:44-45)
Does
my story exemplify the heart of Christianity? Well, “yes”, and at the same
time, “no”. Yes, Tim’s role in the story is the role of the true disciple of
Christ, the disciple whom Jesus loves, the disciple who loves like only God can
love, with the Love that is the Glory and Grace of Paradise. It is the Love of
one in holy communion with Jesus, and
one who in that communion becomes like the Son, a child in the embrace of His
Father’s Love - a child who leaves all else for that embrace, that communion
with the Lord, that “one thing” in comparison to which all else becomes as
refuse? Yes, Tim’s role in the story of my awesome memory does give us a
glimpse of the heart of Christianity, of Jesus’ Dream of the Kingdom, for that
Dream calls us to that same “one thing”. (Mt. 6:33)
But
do not be fooled here. Yes, Tim’s role in the awesome story from my past is a
glowing witness to the true love of God, but my role as the father in the story
is not. In the many years distant from the moment of that memory, how keenly I
have grown to realize that my role in the story is a failed witness to God’s
love. For that memory of my awesome moment leaves out any substantial witness
to the power and depth of the Father’s Love - the most critical component of
the Dream of Jesus for each of us.
And
it will be at the moment of my passing from this life that I will see how true
this is – how true it is that in the Face of the Father’s Love, there is so
much more to the Lord’s Dream for us than the Tim story or any story can tell.
Yes, at the moment of my passing from this life, I, like my son, will see Jesus,
the Face of my Father’s Love. He will be waiting and watching for me. In fact, even
if I were still at a great distance (Lk. 15:20) from Him, the Lord will be
there waiting and watching for me to come to Him.
I
will see Jesus, the true witness to the fullness of the Father’s Love, crossing
the fields and once more coming to me as He had always come to me during the
many games of my life. He had always been there to watch me, to root me on, and
with shouts and applause give me His support and encouragement. But now at the
hour of my passing, I will leave the game of life and the fields of this world
and run to Him. And in that hour, in my communion with Him, in my communion
with Christ, the world and the flesh and all the barriers on earth to the Great
Beyond will no longer stop me as He draws me to Himself (John 12:32).
And as I run to Him, I will see something else, something
not part of the moment in my awesome memory. I will see that the Lord – unlike
me, the failed witness to the Father’s Love in the Tim story – will likewise be
running to me, running toward me even from the moment of my turning to come to
Him. Though I am yet at a distance I will see that with radiant Love He is
running toward me to embrace me and kiss me. (Lk. 15:20) And as He draws near,
I will see that He even runs to me with a bleeding Heart and a Body that has
been broken out of love for me. I will see that He even runs to me with
outstretched arms having hands that are pierced. I will see that He runs to me
through cost, crisis, and challenge. I will see that He runs to embrace me even
through the Blood of the Cross – the price He paid to have me with Him forever.
(Jn. 14:3; 17:24)
Through
the Cross, the Lord had opened a door, and once the Lord opens a door, no man
can shut it. Now no one or no thing will separate me from Him (Romans 8:35); no
one or no thing will any longer hold me back from His total embrace, from total
oneness with God.
Because
of that Blood and that Body pierced for me, no one or no thing in our world or
the world beyond will keep me now from coming to His Love. (Romans 8:35; 38-39)
Nothing will ever separate me from the prize He purchased for me at the price
of His Passion: to be consumed with the Fire of His Spirit, to be drawn into a
most Holy Communion with Divine Love - that Love like only God can love, that
Heavenly Fire burning in the Heart of the Father, which the Son revealed to us
on the Cross.
