9781644135945

The Time After Pentecost
Prayer
O God, who hast prepared invisible goods for those who love Thee, pour forth Thy love into
our hearts, that loving Thee in all things and above all things, we may be worthy to receive Thy
promises, which exceed all our desires. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Thursday
The Collect expresses the great desire of the Church: “Pour forth Thy love into our hearts” that
we may love Thee “in all things and above all things.” The Spirit of Christ living and working
within our souls urges us to this love. So we, too, making the intention of the community our
own personal intention, beseech God that He may give us the grace to truly love Him above
all things.
May we love Thee “in all things and above all things.” We aspire to love. It is our only sentiment
worthy of God, who made it the great commandment. It is the only sentiment that can truly
change our heart by directing it towards God and disengaging it from creatures, by enlarging
and strengthening it to do and suffer everything for God. When we truly love God, we are
determined to sacrifice and lose everything rather than offend or displease Him; we desire
nothing more than what He wills and as He wills it. Placing our one happiness above all earthly
values, pleasures, and riches, we are willing to leave father and mother, to renounce earthly love,
to postpone everything agreeable life might offer us, in order to live for Him, to promote His
honor, to please Him. We say with the Apostle: “The things that were gain to me, the same I have
counted loss for Christ. Furthermore I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge
of Jesus Christ my Lord, . . . and count them but as dung, that I may gain Christ” (Phil 3:7 f.).
We understand what Christ meant when He said: “He that loveth father or mother more than
Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of
Me” (Mt 10:37). God must be preferred in all things and above all things. His holy will must
be sought always. God and His holy will should be our only thought, our only desire, the world
around which everything centers. If we place Him and His will and honor above everything
else, we forget ourselves, embracing pain as well as joy, poverty as well as abundance, sickness
as well as health.
Love is above any other motive. The natural man acts from purely natural motives: a noble
man from noble motives, an egoistic and wicked one from egoistic, perverted, and sinful motives.
But even the Christian, trying to achieve the perfection of a Christian life, finds within
himself a frightening tendency to place the consideration of his ego before all his motives. Even
he is always tempted to think first of his own advantage, his own satisfaction instead of God,
His will, and His honor; the habit of thinking of himself first and of seeking himself first is so
deep-rooted even in the good and spiritual minded, that he is hardly aware how much he is
moved by reasons other than the love of God. To love God above all things does not mean we
must exclude other noble motives. It means only that other motives, however noble and good,
must be subordinated to the motive of the love of God. The first and decisive motive governing
all other motives in the true Christian is the love of God. The true Christian accepts whatever
befalls him because such a happening is ordained by God and is permitted by Him. But we all
have the bad habit of seeking ourselves first. We must oppose to this bad habit, not merely an
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