370th Meditation
To know, honour and love the Father…
Our Father wants us to love Him with our whole heart, and we turn to the Holy Spirit to ask Him to accomplish this in us, detaching our hearts from all that hinders us from corresponding to this great love.
On the Father’s side, there are no impediments to offering us His love undividedly. Indeed, it is this love that created us and redeemed us; it is this love that watches over us day and night; it is this love that wants to inflame and touch us, drawing us to Himself.
It may be that sometimes – or, unfortunately, all too often – our heart feels cold and we think that we do not really love God. But we must not allow ourselves to be misled. As long as we remain on the path of the commandments, we love God, as Our Lord gives us to understand: “Whoever holds to my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me” (Jn 14:21). A palpable coldness of heart towards God is not necessarily an indication that we have rejected Him with our way of life and that we ourselves are therefore to blame.
It is our will that must come into play here, turning to God. This is our power of love, which we can always offer to the Father. Indeed, this is how He sees it, even if we temporarily lack that inner impetus to affectionately express our love to Him. Of course, we must make a sincere examination of conscience, questioning whether we have filled our hearts with other things by neglecting our spiritual and religious practices. If so, we must leave behind what has distracted us and turn to the Lord, without wasting our time.
On the other hand, if we can honestly conclude that the cooling has not been caused by our own neglect, then let us simply offer our cold heart to the Father, tell Him that we love Him and ask Him to warm this heart of ours and awaken it fully to His love.