“Christ did not come to earth to create a new religion, but to offer to every human being a communion in God.”
Brother Roger of Taize
"Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I fell but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours."
St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions (xxvii, 38)
Today we continue the theme of paradox. The closer we become to someone, the more the mystery increases. You can know everything about a person and still this does not remove the mystery of love. Former Dean of Perkins School of Theology Robin Lovin wrote
"Love, likewise, values other people as they are related to God and not as they are useful or important to oneself. Love as a virtue, as a habit of choice and action, consistently does those things that enable others to flourish as persons with their own dignity and their own relationship to God." Christian Ethics: An Essential Guide
Love is a very mysterious thing. The more we know about God, the more we love God, the more mysterious the relationship becomes. It often (or always) is beyond explanation. Think of the phrase "God is love." Think about what it means. One of the first thoughts may be a "because" statements, as in "God is love because ______." We use examples, we describe attributes of God, and very quickly it becomes clear that this is a very mysterious relationship that is very hard to describe. Love is a mystery and that's okay.
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