“Can you say with me: Praise the name of Jesus?” She stumbled and stammered but could not say those precious words. Why not? because she had been introduced to the ouija board. Instead of knowing the words and works of Jesus she became addicted to a board that would talk to her. Sin darkens the intellect and the heart and destroys the soul’s ability to grow in divine, victimal love. There is a specific progression in the Love of God which flows from the Father to the Son and through the Holy Ghost. The nine stages of love are rarely reflected upon and much more rarely put into practice. So let us outline these stages of divine love.
In the first place all nine aspects of the Trinity’s loving nature are rooted in a deep and sacrificial quality that is exhibited by a permanence that is rarely found in human nature. This quality leads us to the first expression of God’s love for us in the Person of the Father. In the Father we discover a love that “prefers” you and I before all other possibles in the mind of God. Preference is the first stage of love in our families. The father prefers his sons and daughters to all the other boys and girls in the whole world. This preferential love is a mark of sacrifice for a father will do anything for those in his family.
Preferential love then yields to an act of the will. God chose you and I over all those others that we might offer to this creation the gifts He bestowed uniquely on each of us. He wills us to be the saints that this world needs right now. He did not chose us to exists in the 500’s but to live and love in the year 2020. Our Father gives us freedom of will because He wants us to respond to His love by an act of willed love. This is what gives us the means of sanctity.
In the freedom the Father offers his children, He permits us to rebel against His love and in doing so we sin and blind ourselves to eternal life. Now the three aspects of the divine love in the Father become as clear as the day: Preferential love leads to an act of the will which permits you and I to wound the Father by our sins. With His love wounded the Father cries out: “Whom might I send to re-bond my children to my Heart?” At this point the Father hears the response of His Son, His Word: “Father, send Me.” How might this be accomplished? Only by the acceptance of the will of God by the most humble of all maidens, Mary. Gabriel, the Strength of God, approaches the shy and humble virgin and asks the key question: “Will you give God a human nature?” Without the “fiat” of the blessed virgin the Son could not enter our humanity. With her “fiat” the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us.
Honored by the act of the Virgin the Son begins the threefold expression of His divine love for us. In the first movement of this humble love the Incarnation marks the beginning of His Love. No man on earth could match the humility of love expressed by God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, shedding his divine nature to take up a human nature with all its limitation. He was like us in all things but sin.
The Incarnation alone could redeem us but it would not be sufficient to express the depth of the Son’s love. He had to become a “worm” in order to serve us by the shedding of His Blood to the very last drop. The Crucifixion stands forever as the act of religion proclaimed from the time of Abel and continue on daily with each priest offering the sacrifice in an un-bloody manner. Calvary is represented and the bond of divine blood cleanses us of all sin.
However this was not enough to testify to the Son’s intense care for our souls. He would remain with us in the humblest of sacraments: Holy Communion. In this third movement of the Son’s love we receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus. What more could He do for us? He will send the Holy Ghost that we might discover how to recall Jesus’ words to us and prepare us for the gift of reunion in the family of God.
Sending the Holy Ghost, our Lord said that (1) the Holy Ghost would convict us of our sin. We wounded the Father, we crucified the Son and now we must have the understanding of the horrendous deed which blinds us to God’s love. After we have received the light of the Holy Ghost then we willingly “confess” our sins to the good priestly representative to experience the “forgiveness that is divine”. This forgiveness opens our hearts to forgive our neighbor (2) hence we receive the second gift of the Holy Ghost. Finally, in the motion of the nine expressions of divine love we come to the highest of them all. It is the apex of divine love to (3) forgive the one(s) who seek to kill you (your enemies). “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Now these are the nine stages of divine love and they are integrated into our human nature once we understand the full vision of the divine mind. We will fall into these expressions if we have severed our ties with any and all habitual sins. Seek that purity of heart that we find in our Blessed Mother. Ask her to direct you in these times. Through her special rosary prayer all these aspects of the Supernatural Life of the Blessed Trinity become more and more clear as time goes by. Commit yourself to be the saint that God wants you to be and all things will work to your good. May your mother be your guide and you can be sure she will be always near to you.
In the hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Fr. Richard Voigt
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