Bishop Challoner's Meditations - Monday After the Fourth Sunday

ON LOVING THE LORD OUR GOD ABOVE ALL THINGS

Consider first, the import of these words, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,’ and thou shalt find in them innumerable motives to dedicate thyself to divine love. For who is this thou art here commanded to love? THE LORD, that is, the eternal, self-existent, incomprehensible, and infinite Being of beings, who alone properly is, and who is being itself. For all this is implied in that ineffable name, which is here rendered THE LORD. ‘I am, who am,’ saith he, Exod. iii. 14. And 'he who is hath sent me to you’- THE LORD, that is, the creator, and absolute master of the whole universe, of all things visible and in visible; infinitely powerful, infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely beautiful: the one true sovereign good, infinite in all perfections, goodness, beauty, perfection, and truth itself, compared with whom all things else are just nothing at all. See, my soul, how many motives thou hast to love this great Lord, who comprises in himself all that is lovely and charming, who is the immense ocean of all good.

Consider 2ndly, the motives of divine love implied in those words, thy God; forasmuch as they signify that this Lord of infinite majesty is also pleased to be thine. Yes, he is thy God, he is thy first beginning and thy last end, he is thy maker, who has made thee for himself; and who many ways daily communicates himself to thee; he is thy father, thy spouse, thy pastor, thy keeper, thy constant benefactor, thy ever faithful friend, thy ancient and most disinterested lover, thy sovereign good, and the source of all thy good, for time and eternity. And whereas thou wast fallen from him and from his love by sin, he has been pleased to give himself to thee, in a manner still more enduring, by sending his own Son to be thy saviour and redeemer. O reflect, my soul, on what the Son of God has done and has suffered for the love of thee. From the first moment of his conception, thou wast always in his heart. His love for thee brought him down from his heavenly throne, to take flesh and blood in the womb of the Virgin; his love for thee made him offer up his flesh and blood upon the altar of the cross, a sacrifice for thy sins; his love for thee made him bequeath this same flesh and blood in an admirable sacrament, to unite thee to himself for eternity. And shall not all this oblige thee to love him, and to love him with thy whole heart?

Consider 3rdly, that this love which we owe to our God, both as infinitely good in himself and as infinitely good to us, must be a love of preference, that is, we must love him above all things whatsoever. For he that loves his worldly honour, his interest, his pleasure, his own will, the gratifying his humours and passions, or the pleasing of any person, how near or dear soever, more than his God, is not worthy of God; but is guilty of high treason against him, and of a kind of idolatry, in preferring the creature before the creator, who is blessed for evermore. And not only he that prefers any creature before God, but he that even offers to put himself, his own life, his dearest affections, or any other thing created, or even the whole creation in balance with his God, so as to love them as much as God, is in like manner unworthy of God, and offers him the greatest outrage imaginable; because the whole universe compared with God is a mere nothing, and therefore cannot, without an intolerable injury, be put in balance with him. Ah what must I then think of myself, when I have so often preferred empty toys, mere vanities, and lying follies before the living God.

Conclude henceforward, at least, to love the Lord thy God above all things, and nothing else with him, but what thou lovest for his sake, and with relation to him. Cry out with St. Michael, Quis ut Deus? Who is like to God? And who but he deserves our heart?