Monday Musings – The Greatest Love Story

There are so many reasons I love Lent. But really, all the reasons come down to one thing: the various spiritual practices of this season always call me to seek the Heart of God in a deeper way. Lent never fails to remind me of God’s great mercy and personal love for me, because by its very nature, Lent sets the stage for the greatest act of love in the history of the world; And whether I like it or not, I am a player on this stage, and so are you. But we have a choice of how well, and how willingly, we will play our roles.

Although we all have different parts to play in this earthly drama bound heavenward, each of us, with all our unique roles, have the same end goal: to recognize the immense love God has for us and to respond freely to that love with everything in us! The Jewish people remind themselves of this twice daily, when they recite what is called the Shema Yisrael, taken from Deuteronomy:

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone!
Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God,
with your whole heart, and with your whole being,
and with your whole strength”(6:4-5).

If I prayed that twice a day, I would be so convicted! I try to make God my first priority every day, but my morning and evening routine is nothing like this. It’s more like — a stumble out of bed, grabbing my Bible as an afterthought to my caffeine, and groggily trying to make sense of whatever passage I happen to open up to … or falling into bed at night and realizing I didn’t pray my Rosary yet, and drifting off before I finish the Creed. Whole heart? Whole being? No. Nothing like what the Shema Yisrael would look like. And I know I’m not the only one!

But I want to have this structure; I want to remember the Lord’s love for me and my call to love Him each morning and evening. And many others I’ve talked to have this same longing. So why can’t we make it happen consistently?

I am reminded of one of my favorite poems by John Donne. It’s a beautiful piece, where the writer expresses his same frustration at not being able to love the Lord as well as he would like or respond to God’s love for him. This section captures his struggle:

“I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;”

Donne describes not just his situation, but the human condition — our condition. We are also like an “usurp’d town”; we have been taken over and distracted by the world, by the devil, by the flesh … and though we “labor to admit” the Lord, sometimes it seems like a hopeless battle. Our reason, which ought to aid us, is held captive, and though we long for God in the depths of our souls, we have let ourselves become “betroth’d” to His enemy.

The good news is that this only happens when we forget to remind ourselves daily of God’s love and mercy, and when we fail to “make space for grace,” as my father says,  in our everyday life — especially the grace of the Sacraments. If we truly make the time each day to sit with the Lord, to simply “be” with Him, letting our presence be our gift of love, He will teach us how to break free of our captivity.

Donne ends his poem by begging God to forcefully separate him from this unwanted betrothal:

“Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”

And that’s our cue. We must never stop asking the Lord to “imprison” us in His Heart, to “enthrall” us, to “ravish” our hearts, so that we will not be so distracted by — or worse, content with, the things of this world.

So, this fourth week of Lent, let us resolve to seek still more our God, this fierce, yet gentle, lionhearted God, who will stop at nothing to win us over to Him. The Lord will never give up on us; let us not give up on Him! We must earnestly ask the Lord for the grace to recognize and respond to His love for us as we approach Calvary, the ultimate sacrifice of Love.