Those Woes were for Me...

"Why does God love the poor?" I sat down to compose an answer to this question not long ago. I was going to research it and compose a bulleted expose on the why's and how's... you see, I have "loved the poor" in small increments over the years... but lately I have had to act in a loving way for days on end... and it is hard. I'm not used to doing things that are hard. So, I thought that maybe if I could answer that question, it would be easier. Like any good, hell-bound pharisee, I set my eyes on others, left myself out of the picture, and went about constructing an argument to convince myself to love... I was even using my computer. I was taking this seriously.

Five or twenty or fifty minutes into my research, in some certain act of mercy... the question became "why does God love me?"... and the absurdity of that answer--the impossibility, the sheer miracle--caused all else to disappear.

God loves at all because he is good. If that sentence falls flat on your ears, you have a serious comprehension problem. Join me in laboring to understand... even a hint of what that sentence means... His is a fierce goodness, a determined love. You cannot find the bottom of it. It is impossible to take more than it gives, because it gives all. It knows nothing of self-preservation. It is a love that loves despite the gross appearance of the beloved... and that actually makes its goodness more luminous. Let me be exhibit A of this kind of absurd redemption... let me see it better every day... and in an even kinder mercy, I will become what I behold.

"Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good--above all, that we are better than someone else--I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether, or you see yourself as a small dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether." -C.S.L.-