A Blade of Grass

Sorry I missed last week's posting...life sometimes crowds out the heart's desire. 

Today, in honor of Ash Wednesday and Valentines Day, I would like to offer some words of meditation from the Venerable Louis of Granada (1588 c.). 

"O God, if all the causes and motives for love are summarized and centered in you to an eminent degree, why do I not love you with the full capacity of my love? If we were to see any one of these motives of love in any creature, we would love that creature with such abandon that we would gladly die for it. Why,then, Lord, are we not inflamed with your love? Why do we not melt with love and desire to suffer a thousand deaths for love of you? If we recall the benefits we have received from you, we shall realize that we owe you the greatest debt of gratitude.  If we consider love itself, we shall see that no one loves us more than you. Who is more perfect than you, more good, more beautiful, more kind, more noble, more wise, more powerful, more generous?What is it Lord, that prevents our hearts from running to you? What bonds could be so strong that they hold us captive and prevent us from reaching you? If it is a love for the things of the world, how can such fragile and passing things hold back the impetus of our love for you? Will a blade of grass be sufficient to resist a stone that comes hurtling down a mountain side?" 

These words pierce me because I know too well that my love for the things of this world do hold me back from living a fully abandoned life for the love of God, in response to a loving God. 

May this Lenten season bring clarity to the futility and emptiness of the things we put our trust in beside Jesus. 

May this Lenten season bring clarity to the futility of being satisfied in any other person, place, or thing, but in the person of Jesus. 

May God grant to us our plea, for without His intervention we will still be putting our faith in a blade of grass to stop a rolling stone.