Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Everyday Prayers: The Act of Love

Love is at the heart of Christian life because it is at the heart of God. The Father loves us so much that He gave His only Son that we might be saved. The Son loves us so much that He became man and suffered and died to redeem us. The Holy Spirit is the very manifestation of the love that flows between the Father and the Son. God's love is perfectly self-giving. It overflows and pours out upon the beloved with no limits and no end. Only the receiver can block the flow of God's love by refusing to accept it or putting up barriers to hold back its abundance. 

What's more, God doesn't just love; He is love. He is love in person; love is His very nature, His very being. Therefore, God longs for us to respond to Him with a love that mirrors, however poorly and feebly, His own perfect love. This prayer, the Act of Love, helps us do that when we pray it from the heart. 

O my God, I love You above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because You are all good and worthy of all my love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of You. I forgive all who have injured me and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured. Amen.

Let's take a close look at this beautiful little prayer.

1. O my God – With these three little words, we are claiming God as our own. We are saying that we have a personal relationship with Him. We are not, of course, asserting that we can control God or that we somehow possess Him. Quite the opposite is true. When we claim God, we submit to His will and His loving control of our lives, and we allow Him to possess us.

2. I love You above all things – God deserves the very best of our love. He is far above all created things, for He is the Creator of the whole universe and everything in it. He has given us everything we have and everything we are, and He holds us in being at every moment. He has redeemed us from sin and death, and He longs to bring us home to Heaven to be with Him for all eternity. He has done more for us than anyone or anything else, and therefore, we must love Him above all people and all things.

3. with my whole heart and soul – Our love for God must come from the very depths of our being. The Catechism says, “The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live...The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant” (#2563). Our soul, the Catechism explains, is our “spiritual principle,” the “subject of human consciousness and freedom” that is immortal and the “innermost aspect” of a human being (#363; p.900). In other words, our love for God cannot be a surface emotion or a wavering feeling. It is a choice that comes from within our deepest selves.

4. because You are all good – God is all good, completely, totally good. Human beings intrinsically love goodness; it is part of human nature to do so. Therefore, if we learn of God's goodness and have faith in that goodness, we love Him. We can't help it, for to really know God for Who He is, is to love God Who is all good. 

5. worthy of all my love – There is no one and no thing more worthy of love than God. Besides being all-good, God is all-loving all-beautiful, all-wise, all-true, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present. There is no deficiency in God. He is perfection itself. How can we not love Him?

6. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of You – When we love someone, we tend to also love the people whom our beloved loves. God loves each and every person with a love beyond anything we can ever imagine. He sees each and every person as remarkably loveable, and He expects us to do the same. We may not always like other people. We may have conflicts with them. We may disapprove of their choices and their actions. But we must still desire the very best for them; that is the kind of love God expects us to have for each and every one of our neighbors.

7. I forgive all who have injured me – Part of loving is forgiving injuries. Forgiving doesn't mean that we forget what happened. It doesn't even mean that the person who has offended us is sorry or wants forgiveness. But Jesus says that we must forgive seven times seventy times, just as He does for us. When we forgive, we let go of the offense and move on. It no longer eats at us. We can be at peace and return to willing the very best for other person.

8. I ask pardon of all whom I have injured – We sin every day. We offend God and other people in many ways. We must be aware of our weaknesses and continually repent of our sins. We need to humbly approach those we have injured and offended, God included, admit our faults, and ask forgiveness. This, too, is part of loving someone.

9. Amen – With this little word, we give our firm assent to everything we have just prayed, once again declaring our love for God and other people.

Let us pray:

O my God, I love You above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because You are all good and worthy of all my love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of You. I forgive all who have injured me and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured. Amen.

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