372nd Meditation
To know, honour and love the Father…
We understand that, through the first commandment, our Heavenly Father invites us to correspond to His love with our whole existence, without withholding anything from Him.
It is part of the essence of God’s holy love for us to ask that we, in turn, reciprocate with our whole being. Even if the Father, moved by His goodness, shows infinite patience with us until we awaken to the full expression of love, the demand of this love always remains and is addressed to us as a constant invitation. In this is expressed God’s love for us, manifested on the Cross, where the Lord laid down His life for us.
The Father always offers us this love, withholding nothing from us and calling us into undivided communion with Him in time and eternity. This is what our Father wants us to understand, and He conveys it to us in every possible way, so that we can enter into that relationship with Him which is the foundation of the reality of our existence; that is, to live as beloved children of God.
Before concluding this short series of meditations on how to know, honour and love our Father more deeply, I would like to highlight two more aspects through which we can show Him our love. The first, which is trust, will be briefly addressed below, and tomorrow we will continue with the second aspect.
Trust is the healthy basis on which this holy love that the Father offers us can unfold. It opens our hearts to Him and is the appropriate response to His love for us. Trust will not only sustain us in all difficulties, keeping us steady on our way; it will grow and become ever stronger, especially in those situations of life that are not under our control. Trust clears the way for God to bestow His love upon us. Let us remember that God’s great desire is for us to accept this love and return it, and trust is the “golden key” to realising this desire of His!