Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,
“God is love” affirms St. John in this Sunday’s second reading. These three words have had the most explosive and transformative impact in world history. When this revelation enfleshes itself in a human being, that person is exalted immeasurably. We see this so beautifully expressed in St. Therese of Lisieux, a French cloistered Carmelite sister, who died at the age of 24 in 1897.
She recounts in her masterpiece, The Story of a Soul, that she was searching the Scriptures to see what special vocation God was calling her to. She stumbled upon St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 12:
The Apostle goes on to explain that the most perfect gifts are worth nothing without love, and this more excellent way of going to God is Charity . . . In a transport of ecstatic joy, I cried: “Jesus, my love, I have at last found my vocation; it is love! I have found my place in the Church’s heart, the place you yourself have given me, my God. Yes, there in the heart of Mother Church I will be love, so shall I be all things, so shall my dreams come true. . . I know I am no more than a helpless little child, yet my Jesus, it is my very helplessness which makes me dare to offer myself as a victim to your love!
St. Therese goes on to describe in moving language what incredible vistas were opened up to her in her discovery of God’s calling her to be love. Surely, she discovered the wisdom that all that ancients grasped for but were hardly able to identify or discern. This is the true wisdom that should be the hallmark and deepest passion of each of our lives. “When we discover that “God is love” and that he has given himself to us fully so that we possess and participate in infinite love, our lives take on a totally different meaning and purpose. This is the wisdom of the saints, which is now our treasure to be discovered personally and lived out joyfully.
In Christ,
Fr. Dave
