To return, however, to the opening verses of the Canto: these are St. Bernard’s prayer to the Blessed Virgin, a beautiful and adoring paean. There is one verse, though, which jars me. In spite of the sublimity of the poetry, I believe Dante is mistaken when he has Bernard say to Mary:

you are the one who so ennobled
human nature that the maker of it
condescended to be made of it.

It was not because Mary was so good that God became human, but because you and I were (and are) in such need — because so often we debase rather than ennoble our human nature. Jesus comes to us out of that “love which moves the sun and the other stars,” a love so encompassing that it freely enfolds us in our sinfulness and our brokenness.

At the end of the Paradiso the poet experiences his own desire and will “turned already, / like a wheel that is moved evenly, / by the love which moves the sun and the other stars.”

In our truest self, each one of us is also moved by this love. Let us pray that through Jesus, God-with-us, our whole being might be in harmony with the divine love.

O loving God,
may I wait in peace for you,
and waiting
enter the place in my heart
where like the sun and the stars
I am moved only by your love,
and there find you
already with me,
waiting for me.

 

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning.
(Psalm 130:5-6)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a poem on this very point less than a year before he was executed by the Nazis. Here are a few lines:

Who am I? This man or that other?
Am I then this man today and tomorrow another?
Am I both all at once? An impostor to others,
but to me little more than a whining, despicable weakling?
Does what is in me compare to a vanquished army,
that flees in disorder before a battle already won?
Who am I? They mock me these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, you know me, O God. You know I am yours.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from the poem, “Who Am I,”
written in prison, June 1944.

Whoever I am, I am yours. It is crucial to hold onto this fundamental reality of our life, because whatever is opposed to God, whether inside us or outside us, will try to deceive us into believing the contrary. The following quotation from Acedia and Me, by Kathleen Norris, offers an example of one form this deception can take:

I appreciate the writer Jeffery Smith’s observation that it is all too easy to succumb to the dangerous notion that only our despair truly knows us as we are, even as it mocks any desire we may have to improve our condition.

Our despair may tell us that we are worthless, that no one who really knew us could love us, that we are mired too deep in sin to be forgiven. Our despair, lying through its blackened teeth, whispers that only its voice tells us the truth about ourselves.

It can be very difficult, when we are feeling the worst about ourselves and about life, to tell this inner voice to shut up.

In fact, a sense of unworthiness before the grandeur and goodness of God is normal.  Consider the experience of Isaiah when God called him (Isaiah 6:1-8) or Peter (Luke 5:1-11).  We are all unworthy of the living and loving God.

But there is a big difference between unworthiness and worthlessness.  A spiritual warning bell should sound when we begin to think we are worthless.  Sometimes, though, our interior noise drowns out the warning of danger, so we have to remind ourselves over and over of the truth.

The truth is that we are of infinite worth, and we are infinitely loved. “You were bought with a price,” Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:20. Jesus Christ has paid the ultimate price of his own blood for us.

I may not know myself inside and out, but I can be sure of one thing: I am God’s.

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.
If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord;
so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

(Romans 14:7-8)

The internet has made me more aware than ever of our human tendency to judge each other, although I doubt that more judging is going on now than in the pre-cyberspace world. It is rather that no thought, holy or otherwise, seems to remain unpublished these days.

The blatant ugliness of most of the judgments serves as a caution to me when I am tempted to indulge in it myself.

Below are a few examples, most of which will remain anonymous to protect the perpetrators. But first a distinction:

It is one thing to condemn an action that is obviously harmful. This we must do when necessary.

It is another thing altogether to condemn the person who commits the action; or to claim to know that a person’s heart is evil; or to predict the final end of another; or to hold a person in scorn.  All of these fall under the commandment of Jesus not to judge, that we ourselves may not be judged.

Now to the examples drawn from various websites:

An anti-Christian site informs us that it is only the immature who believe in “non-existent beings,” such as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Jesus.

You can read elsewhere that most Christians are mean-spirited; and that people who speak out for God are often lunatics.

But neither are believers always generous toward other believers (or toward God, for that matter):

Mel Gibson says, “My wife is a saint. She’s a much better person than I am…She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff.”
No matter, for she’s probably going to hell, we learn. It turns out that she is Episcopalian, not Catholic. (Note that the Catholic Church would NOT take the harsh stand that Gibson takes toward his wife.)

On a blog by a young Catholic we are informed that the souls of those who voted for Barack Obama are also in danger of hell.

We find on YouTube that people who practice centering prayer are deceived by Satan, both in being seduced into adopting this form of prayer in the first place, and also because this kind of prayer makes one open to demonic suggestion.

And let’s not forget the Antichrist: the pope is probably the most popular candidate (any pope, pick one).  Others who have been named are Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, the president of the European Union – and on and on….

Even more radically vicious judgments are on the loose (if it is possible to be more vicious than calling someone the Antichrist) which I will not cite because they are not suited for a family-friendly web page.  These judgments I prefer to chalk up to zealous ignorance.

So let us pause and take a deep breath of fresh air…

To continue on a happier note, here are some quotes about the true judgment:

In the evening of life, we will be judged on love.
(St. John of the Cross)

The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in glory… Then through his Son Jesus Christ, [God] will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death.
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1040)

Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy
at the presence of the Lord,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.
(Psalm 98:8-9)

But when I typed, “What does love require?” (once again, in quotes), there were only 350 pages listed, and most were in the Christian context.  It’s those requirements that get to us.  So I asked myself what love requires.  Knowing that we can love only because we have been loved (see 1 John), the first is probably not a surprise; and the others follow.

Remembering that I am the beloved of God: frail, fallible sinner though I be;

Remembering that the other is the beloved of God, whether the other is a child, a co-worker, a beggar, or a terrorist planting a roadside bomb;

Prayer: to take on the mind and heart of Jesus, so that we grow in loving with God’s love, and that we become the mercy and compassion of Christ for the people we meet and for the world.

Our practical actions, I believe, flow from these three.  I am sure that you can flesh out this short list, and I would be glad to hear from you with your own additions.

 _____

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.

(1 John 4:16-19)