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Friday 17 October 2014

Gethsemane and Eden Seven

Love is from God. So, if He takes a loved one from us, He is merely testing the love He gave us to see if we have appropriated love correctly. Gethsemane and Eden meet.

All real love is God. Here is one of St. John's treatises on love.

1 John 4:7-21Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition 

Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love19 We love, because he first loved us. 20 If any one says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot[a] love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.
Several points here. One, God perfects love in us if we really love one another.
Two, He lives in us in that love.
Three, we know this, because we are in sanctifying grace and have the Holy Spirit in us.
Four, this love gives us confidence at the hour of our death, at the edge of the particular judgement, because fear has been destroyed in us and all we have is confidence in God.
Five, if one loves, there is not any fear of suffering and in fact, suffering become joyful.
Six, but one must love whoever God puts in our track. We love those God shows us to love.
One of my good friends who is on his way of becoming a saint recently said to me, "I am getting used to giving things up." Such is the way of love.
More from John...love is truth and accepting orthodoxy.............He writes to the Church. whom he calls "Lady".

2 John 1 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition 

The elder[a] to the elect lady[b] and her children, whom I love in the truth, and not only I but also all who know the truth, because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us for ever:
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.

I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children following the truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father. And now I beg you, lady, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we follow his commandments; this is the commandment, as you have heard from the beginning, that you follow love. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Look to yourselves, that you may not lose what you[c] have worked for, but may win a full reward. Any one who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son10 If any one comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into the house or give him any greeting; 11 for he who greets him shares his wicked work.

Good words for today....to be continued